The Current Trend 'KBOppang'... Lotte Falling Behind Alone

Lotte Giants Left Out of 'KBO Bread' Despite 1 Million Packs Sold by SPC Samlip
Lotte Continues to Be Excluded from KBO Collaboration Products
Only Seven Eleven Considering Baseball Marketing Among Lotte Affiliates

As the professional baseball (KBO) season opens and marketing competition intensifies in the distribution sector, there has been ongoing speculation about why the Lotte Group-affiliated baseball team refused to collaborate with SPC Samlip's 'KBO (Kbo) Bread,' which is currently the most popular product related to professional baseball this year.

According to industry sources on the 26th, the Lotte Giants team was excluded from the 'Kbo Bread' lineup, which sold 1 million packs within three days of its release. Kbo Bread is a product that embodies the characteristics of nine professional baseball teams, excluding the Lotte Giants, in bread form. Inside each Kbo Bread package is one of 215 types of 'Ttibu Seal' (removable stickers) featuring representative players and mascots from each of the nine teams, included randomly.

'Korea Baseball Organization' (KBO) and SPC Samlip collaborated to create 'KBO Bread' (KBOppang). Yonhap News

Since Lotte Group has Lotte Wellfood, a competitor of Samlip, as an affiliate, it appears they chose not to participate. SPC Samlip, the manufacturer of Kbo Bread, reportedly requested cooperation from Lotte through the KBO, but Lotte declined.

An industry insider explained, "Because the players' portrait rights are involved in the Ttibu Seal, each team must negotiate, but Lotte decided not to participate."

This is not the first time the Lotte team has not participated in collaboration products between the Korea Baseball Organization and confectionery companies. In July last year, Haitai Confectionery released a 'Regional Limited Edition Home Run Ball' product for baseball fans, which was also launched in nine types excluding the Lotte Giants.

This year, cases where only the Lotte Giants are excluded have been repeated in various KBO collaboration products, such as Woongjin Foods' 'Haneulbori' KBO edition and last year's Samsung Everland 'Lesser Panda' team-specific dolls.

Among Lotte Group companies, only Seven Eleven plans to release a 'Professional Baseball Collection Card' again this year. Lotte Wellfood and Lotte Chilsung Beverage, which had raised expectations, are reportedly not considering related marketing.

This is considered unusual given that Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin has shown a special 'love for baseball.' Chairman Shin has often expressed, "The power of sports is tremendous," showing his unique affection for baseball. Last year, he visited the stadium with Lotte Group employees and presented meal vouchers from Lotte Hotel to the team. Chairman Shin is listed as the owner of both the Korean Lotte Giants and the Japanese 'Chiba Lotte Marines' teams.

Industry insiders suggest that Lotte Group's liquidity crisis rumors at the end of last year may have affected the sports team. At the end of last year, Lotte pledged the Lotte World Tower (Jamsil, Seoul), a key group asset worth 6 trillion won, as collateral to banks to secure credit enhancement for Lotte Chemical's corporate bonds and focused all efforts on securing liquidity by selling Lotte Rental. Another food industry official explained, "Lotte will not sell the baseball team, but since the profits from baseball marketing are not significant, it seems they are tightening their belts."

The Lotte Giants' poor performance is also cited as a reason for hesitating to launch large-scale marketing. In fact, the last time the Lotte Giants advanced to the postseason was in 2017. When the Hanwha Eagles advanced to the postseason in third place in 2018, among the 10 teams, the Lotte Giants became the team that has gone the longest without reaching the postseason.

Regarding this, a senior Lotte Giants official said, "The reason for not participating in the Kbo Bread collaboration is because the business overlaps with Lotte Wellfood," adding, "Not only with Lotte Wellfood but also with other group companies where business overlaps, we have traditionally not collaborated." He continued, "Regarding goods marketing, we are preparing collaborations with various group companies not only before the season opener but also during the season," and added, "We are also marketing by opening an official brand store on Lotte ON and have collaborated with Korea Fujifilm to create a photo card machine."