Pengsoo, Ryan, Cookie Run Cards... Capturing Millennial Customers (Comprehensive)

Differentiation Through Card Companies' Characters

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] Credit card companies are actively competing to secure millennial customers by launching character partnership cards. In a situation where it is difficult to differentiate card benefits, they are targeting the millennial generation, which is emerging as a major consumer force, through popular characters.

According to the card industry on the 17th, KB Kookmin Card released the 'KB Kookmin Pengsoo Nori Check Card' featuring the EBS character 'Pengsoo' on the card design. Pengsoo is an EBS character running the EBS YouTube channel 'Giant Peng TV' and enjoys absolute support from the 20s and 30s age group. This card, which is sold for a limited time until February 16 next year, uses Pengsoo's unique greeting pose 'Pengha' and various facial expressions of Pengsoo as emoticons in the card design.

The launch of character cards is being proven as a success case one after another. Earlier, NH Nonghyup Card's 'Ryan Cheese Check Card,' featuring Kakao Friends' representative character 'Ryan,' launched in December last year, was issued more than 100,000 cards within three weeks of release. The cute card design engraved with Ryan, a farmer working on a cheese farm, spread by word of mouth. Shinhan Card's Minions check card, launched in March last year in partnership with NBC Universal, was also a huge hit. This card surpassed 300,000 issued cards within four months of launch. Usually, check cards with over 300,000 issued annually are classified as hit products.

Samsung Card also released a product applying the 'Payco Mate' character design to 'Payco TapTap,' launched last year with NHN Payco, and Woori Card introduced a check card featuring the 'Cookie Run' character. BC Card partnered with Cartoon Network to apply the 'We Bare Bears' character to member company check cards.

The reason credit card companies are continuously launching character cards is that it has become increasingly difficult to compete with dramatic additional services and benefits. Due to financial authorities' pressure to reduce marketing expenses for card companies and the implementation of 'profitability analysis system guidelines' that prevent the release of deficit cards, it has become difficult to differentiate benefits.

Ultimately, it is analyzed that they turned their attention to characters targeting the millennial generation, which has recently emerged as a new consumer class with purchasing power and has a desire to collect specific characters. The millennial generation, born from 1980 to the early 2000s, is characterized by a preference for expressing their unique individuality.

The industry expects that such character cards will continue to increase for the time being. A card company official said, "As it becomes increasingly difficult to launch cards with differentiated benefits, card companies are focusing on characters," adding, "We are preparing character cards that stimulate the desire to collect for millennials who value individuality."