[Distribution Hot People] Bellygom Steps on New York Soil... From Domestic to Overseas

Offline-Focused Marketing Effective
Four Animal Sub-Characters Added
Goal Is Long-Lasting Characters

Yoo Hyun-jin, Assistant Manager of the Character Business Team at Lotte Homeshopping, is introducing the Bellygom product. (Photo by Lotte Homeshopping)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] "Next year, we plan to actively distribute Bellygom products and content overseas to regions such as the Americas, Europe, and Southeast Asia."

On the afternoon of the 23rd at the Lotte Home Shopping headquarters, Assistant Manager Yoo Hyun-jin of the Character Business Team said, "The sub-characters of Bellygom have been completed. Four animals including a raccoon, llama, and cat have been added, and they will help unfold the stories of Bellygom and its friends," adding, "We aim to make it a character that can have long-term success, not just a fleeting popularity."

Bellygom is a character born from an in-house venture program conducted in 2018 targeting the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) employees. Assistant Manager Yoo has been a key member leading the Bellygom project from its launch to the present. He emphasized, "From the beginning, the focus was offline. Right after completing the character, we made mascot costumes to create a character that communicates with people," and added, "Looking at fans' reactions, many say 'I want to meet it too' or 'Where can I see it?' I believe that differentiation and marketing strategies focusing on offline presence were important success factors."

The reason for choosing a bear among animals during the character planning was 'familiarity.' Yoo said, "A KBS documentary director once gave a lecture at our company and mentioned that many countries have folktales featuring bears, and that bears are the most familiar animals worldwide, which left a strong impression," and explained, "Of course, a simple bear might not easily catch attention, so we created a large character over 2 meters tall in pink."

In Korea, the 'Amazing Bellygom' event held at the outdoor lawn plaza of Lotte World Tower was very popular. Yoo introduced, "We wanted to try something like the giant duck 'Rubber Duck' that caused a certification shot craze at Seokchon Lake in Jamsil," and added, "Coincidentally, the cherry blossom festival was held for the first time in three years since the COVID-19 outbreak this April, so we prepared a 15-meter Bellygom display. A total of 3.25 million people visited, and over 40,000 posts were uploaded on social networking services (SNS) as certification shots."

Bellygom declared its overseas expansion through a public exhibition at 'Pier 17' in Manhattan, New York, in September this year. Yoo said, "From the early planning stage of Bellygom, we had the ambition to go overseas someday. We judged that New York has symbolic significance in announcing overseas expansion, so we held the exhibition," and added, "For YouTube, we created a separate English channel for Bellygom, which has surpassed 160,000 subscribers. The existing channel also provides subtitles in 4 to 5 languages including English and Spanish."

Bellygom aims to grow as an independent intellectual property (IP). Yoo said, "Lotte Confectionery’s Pepero is also sold in other large supermarkets. Since this is a character business, we do not want to limit it to Lotte only," and added, "We will continue to collaborate with many brands that can create synergy with Bellygom."

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