'eMon' 'Obanjang'... Retail Industry's Character Marketing War

Emart24's eMon character shoe accessory.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Recently, the distribution industry has been fiercely competing in marketing using their own characters.

According to the industry on the 19th, Emart24 is giving away 'e-mon character shoe accessories' through a lottery to customers who purchase I'm Yi products with KakaoPay until the 14th of next month. The e-mon character shoe accessories are e-mon character goods designed to be inserted one by one into the holes of rubber shoes for decoration.

e-mon is a name derived from 'e' symbolizing Emart24 and 'mon' from the cute monster. The story is that monsters from various planets in the universe have gathered in one place to help store owners. Additionally, the monsters have a worldview aiming to create a premium convenience store by embodying their own individuality and expertise. e-mon consists of a total of 10 characters, including the coffee character 'Coffee-ni', the wine character 'Wine-ni', and the delivery character 'Taek-i'.

SSG.com launched mascot 'Obanjang' character goods this month, which were first introduced in March. The Obanjang goods produced this time include a 3-tier lunchbox, a tie-back pouch made of eco-friendly materials, a notebook, and a pen. Obanjang is a character given the persona of 'shopping leader' and 'discount supervisor', wearing a sale badge on the chest and an armband engraved with the discount start time of 9AM on the arm.

Shinsegae Duty Free created a character called ‘Simsatgat’ and is using it for social media (SNS) promotion. Shinsegae Duty Free is conducting an untact escape room game concept event called Simsagat’s treasure map through its official Instagram until the 30th. This event unfolds with the story of finding treasure hidden by Simsagat during the Joseon Dynasty.

CU uses its own character 'Heyroo' on packaging of its namesake private brand (PB), held a video contest using the character, and conducted marketing in partnership with TikTok. It was also used in local store designs in Mongolia and Malaysia. Seven Eleven applies the character 'Buni Family', consisting of a polar bear, penguin, and triangular kimbap, to PB product packaging, unmanned checkout counters, unmanned parcel machines, chatbots, and other service platforms.

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