Tesco, a leading supermarket and general merchandise store just about everywhere but here in the U.S., wanted to increase its share in South Korea (where the brand is called HomePlus and is ranked number 2), but without investing in real estate.
The company found that South Koreans are the 2nd busiest, hardest-working people in the world. These folks need a break. After all that work, who wants to spend time shopping?
So instead of making these busy people find time to go to the store, Tesco brought the store right to where the busiest people are: the subway.
It placed backlit transit posters throughout the Seoul subway system that look amazingly like grocery store shelves. Dairy case shelves. Produce shelves. Butcher shelves.
The "products" on these "shelves" are perfectly to scale, and perfectly realistic. And on each product is a QR code, the graphic stamp that is starting to replace the bar code around the world (even here in the U.S.).
When a commuter/shopper snaps a picture of a product with the QR code reader app on his or her smartphone, it is ordered, paid for, and delivered soon after he or she gets home.
What we have here is a perfect combination of understanding the target, finding a way to bring value to his or her life, transforming a billboard into store, and a commute home from work into a painless trip to the supermarket.
Nice job.
-MD
Leave it to the same people who figured out over 20 years ago that Americans might like the "convenience" of walking into a grocery store and creating their own salad, then sell it by the pound, knowing full-well, that Americans like everything, "BIGGIE SIZED", including their "health food". (And then wash that 2 pounds of sprouts and garbanzo beans down with a diet Pepsi, but I digress. Yes, I agree with the CCE, MD, this too is a brilliant idea. Kudos to the Koreans! F.Luca
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