An emerging trend in Korea involves brands opting to remove product from their stores entirely and focus purely on creating an experience and lifestyle hub for their audience to immerse themselves and enrich their lives.
Simmons is a leading Korean mattress company that takes a more inviting approach for a younger generation. Instead of building a generic mattress store, it has built small grocery stores in various locations spread across Seoul, allowing people to visit often.
A mattress isn’t a product you typically buy very often. Still, to keep their brand at the forefront of consumers’ minds, Simmons has created a retail strategy that allows them to insert themselves into the everyday life of their audience.
The Hyundai Card is the preferred credit card for Gen Z in Korea. Instead of advertising its benefits, the card gives members access to exclusive spaces and experiences. Most notably, members can visit the ‘Card Factory’ where they can see how the physical cards are made and watch over the process.
The brand has also built libraries dedicated to various themes – cooking, art, design and travel. These libraries have rare or limited edition books and, depending on the theme, you can cook, listen to music or purchase some of the art pieces.
We typically don’t associate an eyewear brand with a patisserie; however, Gentle Monster, known for pushing the boundaries of the unexpected, has launched a dessert brand that offers sweet treats as peculiar as their eyewear products. They have released campaign videos and visuals for each seasonal dessert to promote and rolled this out to each of their stores, one seasonal dessert at a time with a distinctive interior design, enticing customers to revisit and selling unique desserts that satisfy both customers’ eyes and taste buds.
Key Takeaway: Selling a brand without directly talking to the product is a great way to elevate a positive brand image and create deeper connections with customers. Consumers are no longer persuaded by forced advertising and instead prefer to judge a brand by their own experiences and retail spaces are key to immersing them in the story.
Consumers aren’t excited by a standardised, one-dimensional set anymore. They want something more organic, aesthetic, and one-of-a-kind.
Korean street brand Ader Error has built a flagship store that revolves around the concept of the universe and space. The concept store includes water installations, moving fixtures and bespoke art installations, sparing much of its space for these art pieces over displaying products. Customers are invited to walk through the store and enjoy the art, free of any pressure to purchase.
Ader Error has also collaborated with high-end technology brand Bang&Olfusen and German artist Nils Völke, to install kinetic art pieces at a pop-up venue. Customers can take part in the installation by making sounds, which will lead to a distinctive acoustic experience with signature aluminium pieces from B&O. These petals stand as a significant object whilst showcasing the brand’s philosophy.
Beaker is a select shop introducing various designers’ brands and homeware. As the name suggests, it coordinates unique styles from different brands with an experimental mind. The shop has collected abandoned old furniture, doors and frames and transformed them into bespoke retail fixtures.
Not a single fixture is the same and each piece echoes its original heritage.
Key Takeaway: Whilst the online market still remains a main venue for sales, paradoxically the importance of physical space is becoming more and more important. It becomes a place where a brand can showcase its concept, value and aesthetics.
To look and to feel is no longer enough for customers. They want to be truly immersed in the world of the brand and the experience of the product. The more space a brand allows for an experience in-store, the more opportunity there is for customers to connect with their story.
Gentle Monster is well-known for its bold and artistic installations. This time the brand has collaborated with Japanese video game, Tekken. The space creates the illusion of being inside a scene from the video game, competing with the character. Alternatively, customers can watch over the game from the first floor.
Tamburins, a brand also by Gentle Monster, sells home and body fragrance products. Just like its mother brand, it plays with big, immersive displays. Right now, the store is decorated with thorns and stems, celebrating the new campaign products with rose scents, something we explore more in our Next-gen Fragrance Experiences insights.
Interestingly, statistics have shown that Gentle Monster puts as much emphasis on their budget for interior and installation of the retail stores as they do for their advertising budget, both sitting at 4.4% of their revenue. They don’t opt into any TV advertising, but instead believe in organic, viral marketing techniques, with their audience taking photos, uploading them on social media and resulting in trending content.
Medicube is a Korean beauty brand that sells home care beauty devices. Their four-story flagship store currently features a two floor takeover for a space-themed art installation. The theme seeks to amplify the message that their new device is so innovative, it’s on par with space technology.
The other two floors are also decorated with different themes and objects. 3rd floor is decorated with moths and grass implying that the elements for the beauty products are natural. The other floor has installation pieces on the ceiling with moving arms. These arms look exactly like their beauty devices. A little variation of display makes the place more lively and fun.
Key Takeaway: Creating ‘WOW’ moments for your customers, leading to organic viral marketing, is key to promoting your brand. You have to sell more than just your product. To help your brand stand out, utilise your physical space so that your audience can feel and experience your story, create something immersive that your customers can step into and feel a part of, with interactive and multi-sensory elements. This will elevate the image of your brand and help to spread the word.
