Targeting MZ Generation Alcohol Culture
Dungeon & Fighter Popup Opens
Game Elements Applied to App
Emart24, the fourth-largest convenience store chain, is focusing on ‘games’ to break the dominance of the top three players CU, GS25, and Seven Eleven. The strategy aims to capture the mainstream culture of the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z), the main customer base, to secure loyal customers.
The Emart24 Samcheong-dong store in Jongno-gu, Seoul is decorated as the 'Danjin24' pop-up store. [Photo by Emart24]
According to Emart24 on the 17th, the popup store in Samcheong-dong, which showcases unique collaborative marketing, recorded 100,000 visitors last year. Game content such as ‘Black Desert’ and ‘Mir M’ was especially popular. Emart24 is operating the ‘Danjin24’ popup store using the intellectual property (IP) of Dungeon & Fighter in partnership with Nexon until the 28th of this month. Over 2,300 people visited in the first three days after the store opened, and sales increased by 62% compared to the same period last year from the 5th to the 15th.
The store features digital signage on two sides of the front, delivering vivid three-dimensional effects to realistically represent the Dungeon & Fighter universe. Inside, it is composed of a mini-game experience area, themed exhibition space, photo booth, lucky draw event zone, and merchandise sales area. Dungeon & Fighter food products are also popular. In fact, the Dunpa BBQ Whole Chicken Burger and Tonkatsu Triangle Kimbap ranked first and second in sales within their category less than a week after launch.
Earlier, in September last year, Emart24 partnered with Wemade to open the Mir M popup store. The Emart24 signboard was replaced with ‘Mir24’, creating an oriental atmosphere with tiled roofs and traditional lanterns. Digital signage delivering three-dimensional effects was installed on three sides of the front, and the interior was designed as a game experience-themed space. As a result, the cumulative number of visitors over a month was about 21,000. In June of the same year, Emart24 opened the Black Desert popup store in collaboration with Pearl Abyss. Under the name ‘24BLACK’, it was arranged with a photo booth and convenience store space on the first floor and exhibition and experience spaces on the second floor. The cumulative number of visitors during that period reached about 19,000.
Emart24 also applied game elements to its own application (app). Users can enjoy mini-games such as making lunch boxes and brewing Ifresso coffee beans. The difficulty increases as the game continues, and the top 1 to 100 players are selected weekly within the game portal. Users earn points, experience, gold, and rubies each time they play. Rubies can be exchanged for discount coupons usable in offline stores or the app, and gold can be used to purchase costumes to customize characters. After the app’s revamp, the average daily active users increased 2.9 times compared to the same period last year over one month.
An Emart24 official said, "Our differentiated strategy through game content is increasing our presence among the MZ generation," adding, "We plan to continuously introduce innovative attempts in product development and marketing to strengthen differentiated competitiveness."
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