[Distribution Hot People] A Unique Challenge Blending Sports and Brands... "I Switched to Mom's Touch"

Nam Yujin, Marketing Team Manager at Mom's Touch

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seon-ae] Many companies plan YouTube channels. As the era where 8 out of 10 people watch YouTube (based on the 2019 Internet Usage Survey by the Ministry of Science and ICT) has arrived, promotional channels have expanded beyond TV, portals, and social networking services (SNS) to YouTube. Although brand YouTube channels are springing up like mushrooms, most have not established themselves. Among them, there is a brand channel that has naturally blended the brand based on ‘sports’ alone and secured highly loyal subscribers. It is ‘Touchplay,’ the YouTube channel of ‘Mom’s Touch,’ famous for cost-effectiveness, Ipjjit Burger, and under-advertising.

Touchplay is a channel that features legendary sports stars from soccer, basketball, and other sports competing in unique matches with ordinary people. When they win, a certain amount is accumulated and donated to places in need. However, it is not easy to connect a sports YouTube channel with Mom’s Touch. Nam Yoo-jin, a marketing team manager at Mom’s Touch with 12 years of marketing and advertising experience, whom we met on the 3rd, said, “The friends playing matches with the athletes are in their teens and twenties, and 63% of Touchplay viewers are aged 18 to 34,” adding, “It is a strategic PPL based on sports content targeting the main audience who like Mom’s Touch the most.” Touchplay has considerable rarity in that you can meet sports legends from all disciplines, and since its launch in February 2018, it boasts about 150,000 subscribers and a total content view count of 45 million, showing its hot popularity.

Since the second half of last year, Manager Nam has been planning content together with HENT, a subsidiary of Haemaro Food that produces Touchplay, and has continuously released follow-up items according to subscribers’ reactions. These include the ‘Military League Reserve Forces Edition’ and the ‘Seedling Stomping Project.’ The Military League Reserve Forces Edition was inspired by comments on the ‘Military League’ content, which features soccer and jokgu (Korean foot volleyball) matches in military units.

He explained, “Among the existing soccer themes, the Military League actually became a big hit, so we wanted to plan a continuous item to keep it alive. After brainstorming with the Touchplay production team, we found many comments recalling memories of playing soccer in the military, and we thought, ‘This is it!’ and started the ‘Reserve Forces Edition’ for discharged soldiers.” The Military League Reserve Forces Edition had a good start with about 3,200 applicants over three weeks and is praised for firmly establishing the character of the content, with a peak view count of 800,000.

The Seedling Stomping Project, a basketball-themed series airing since January, is a huge success. Even though not all videos have been uploaded yet, the total views have surpassed 7.7 million. Manager Nam said, “In fact, basketball is less popular than soccer, baseball, or volleyball, to the extent that sports channels even stopped broadcasting games,” adding, “We chose high school students as the opposing team to provide young basketball hopefuls with an experience they could never feel elsewhere, helping them become future star players.” He wanted to create unforgettable memories for students dreaming of becoming basketball players by letting them play against legendary players like Ha Seung-jin, Woo Ji-won, and Kim Seung-hyun. He smiled, saying, “Especially, the Daejeon High School students who recently played were quite skilled and had a close match with the legendary players. The game videos are so entertaining that we expect great responses from subscribers.”

Manager Nam carefully reads all comments on the videos, and the most rewarding comments are those like “After watching the video, I switched to Mom’s Touch for hamburgers” or “I will eat Mom’s Touch for lunch tomorrow.”

Finally, he said, “Touchplay has become the number one contributor to bringing customers to stores by focusing on the fun of the content, which naturally led to a positive image boost for Mom’s Touch, the channel’s sponsor. While we have focused on soccer and basketball so far, this year we plan to expand into other sports to continuously create opportunities for many consumers to interact with legendary sports players and build fandom.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.