Author

Sehee

Browsing
Case Study

Collaboration with Brands and Kidults Culture in South Korea

By

H&M lured a lot of shoppers all around the world thanks to the collaboration with Balmain recently. In front of the H&M store in Myeongdong, Seoul, South Korea, people wanting to buy the H&M x Balmain items had camped from a week before of the event.

It was said that about 400 people in line were divided into groups of 30 people in this branch, and roughly 1,100 people queued up in advance in total across 4 branches in H&M stores in South Korea. They were allowed to shop for 10 minutes and every item was sold out in three hours. This sounds rather extreme, but the collaboration strategy certainly worked.

Talking of collaboration, it seems companies in South Korea also love to work with other brands for sales, especially targeting ‘kidults’ nowadays. Kidults is a term combining two words ‘kid’ and ‘adult’, indicating grown-ups who still want to keep child-like tastes. They feel nostalgia for their childhood and want to recall it through toys they used to play with or cartoon characters that were popular back in those days. The concept seems expanded in that now it doesn’t seem goods necessarily have to be the exact items that were popular when they were young; kidults like to enjoy buying and collecting items that look cute and child-like as long as the products can make them feel they are back to their childhood.

Between in late twenties and forties they are those who can actually purchase nostalgic items, less influenced by price, to appreciate their child-like hobbies. This has appealed to marketers in South Korea. They have started to pair up with other character/cartoon brands to design their products with the characters on to attract kidult consumers.

The following examples might illustrate how popular collaboration, particularly with character brands, is in South Korea at the moment. It was almost countless; as a result the collection of the examples below may be also rather long.

1. Cosmetics

  • A’PIEU x Doraemon
  • LAPCOS x Disney
  • VDL x Kakao Friends
  • CODE x MOOMIN
  • TONYMOLY x MIGHTY ATOM


atom3atom 2

<Image Source: TONYMOLY Website> 

  • Innisfree x Line Friends

2. Clothing

  • BEANPOLE x Kakao Friends

bean pole  bean2 bean  bean3

<Image Source: SSFshop Website>

3. Culture

  • MEGABOX (Cinema) x Oxford
  • CGV (Cinema) x Kakao Friends
  • CU (Convenient Store) x Oxford

4. Food & Drink

  • Samlip x Line Friends (: random character stickers inside)
  • First Soju (alcoholic drinks) X SML

12246746_953653198055702_8804706876194885788_n

12247073_953653201389035_3457117856826788127_n

<Image Source: First Soju Facebook Page>

5. Etc.

  • T-Money (Transportation Card) x Mini Bus Tayo
  • T-Money x Line Friends

tayo

t-money

<Image Source: T-Money Shop>

  • Thermos x Line Friends
View Post
By
Case Study

Slicing Clouds to Take Over Free Business Seats When Flying with Air France

By

Air France has recently launched new cabins in Asia; it is engaging and rather creative how the company has managed to draw public attention to its new feature, using its own mobile app service. The mobile game application, called ‘Cloud Slicer’ which is available both in iOS and Android Market, was developed and launched by Air France. This is a simple and easy game to learn and play quickly, asking users to slice as many clouds as possible – but not the moon – in order that they can have high scores and ranks from competitions with other users. It allows passengers at airports to kill time while they wait for boarding, and it is a fun creation by an airline company for its customers as part of the service. [youtube=http://youtu.be/RA1qRlUynGg] Air France has taken one more step from this general intention, the creation of fun engagement, by a promotional event being embedded with its existing app service. From 19th January to…

View Post
By
Tourism

Say “Hello!” to 50+ Paddington bears around London

By

Since Paddington the bear came into the world in October 1958 through the book named ‘A Bear Called Paddington’, it has stayed close to us in various forms: souvenirs, TV commercials and programmes, and movies. Now, during the last two months of this year we can even meet the bear greeting us at physical locations around London. From 4th November to 30th December, visitors to London can see more than 50 Paddington statues along the Paddington Trail. Every statue has different designs signed by worldwide celebrities, designers and artists including Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Watson, David Beckham, Boris Johnson, Stephen Fry. This event is a result of partnerships among Studio Canal, which is a movie distribution company for Paddington, VisitBritain and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). It is in the part of Great Britain Campaign* which the UK Government has executed to promote various sectors in the UK. The Paddington Trail is specifically to improve Tourism…

View Post
By
Case Study

TV Adverts Say Christmas is Coming

By

Last night, the last episode of Downton Abbey Season 5 was on ITV, and so were the bombarding Christmas adverts between the programme. Although I did not count how many adverts I saw last evening that were specifically for the Christmas season, it will not be surprising even if I randomly pick the number of 10 or more: ALDI, Boots, Lidl, Waitrose, John Lewis, Debenhams, Coca Cola, and so on. Certainly Christmas is coming in the UK. It is impossible not to know this fact, thanks to the Christmas adverts. The Christmas adverts themselves are not new, but it seems there have been attitudinal changes among viewers towards the Christmas commercials, notably since the Christmas commercial from John Lewis in 2013. The viewers were absolutely fascinated by the commercial and are excited to see what this year’s advert is like. This change was possible because companies – like John Lewis -…

View Post
By
Case Study

Instagram Foodies Are Welcomed for Restaurants to Go Viral

By

[youtube=http://youtu.be/TKNA5GnO7Xs] [Comodo NYC’s Instagram Menu] In late 2012, a new restaurant was opened in Soho, NYC, the US and they came up with a trendy digital marketing strategy, which effectively used the characteristics of hashtags and SNS users who like sharing their experiences. The restaurant introduced a hashtag on the menu – called #ComodoMenu – which Instagram users, especially those known as ‘foodies’, could use for their ‘foodstagramming’. Everyone who typed the hashtag could see the tagged photos and share theirs with other users. [http://instagram-menu-comodo.com/] As a start-up business, marketing could have been one of the trickiest things to do efficiently and effectively, but Comodo NYC amazingly fulfilled the two challenging issues on marketing, with almost the zero cost. This was a good example of viral marketing. The restaurant simply opened a platform for customers to play in, and visitors were happy to join this easy and fun digital playground. Thanks to helps from #foodies…

View Post
By
Case Study

Can the ‘Happiness Blanket’ Tell Enough about How Satisfied Customers Are with British Airways?

By

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oF0-28MOoU (British Airways – Happiness Blanket) This summer British Airways (BA) conducted a new way to measure their customers’ experiences during the flight, adopting a creative technology. They distributed the so-called ‘Happiness Blanket’ to passengers with matching head gear, which sensed electrical changes in the passengers’ neurons depending on various situations: when the flight was taking off and landing in, and when the passengers were sleeping, eating meals, and watching BA’s entertainment programmes. When the passengers felt nervous the hairbands noticed it and sent signals to the blankets, which then changed the colour of the blankets into red. In opposite situations, when the customers were relaxed and happy the colour turned into purple-ish blue. Although it is a novel idea to evaluate customers’ experiences, it seems it is, yet, rather early to officially adopt the technology. The fact that customers have to wear the band around their heads all the time can…

View Post
By