If there is’Son Heung-min’ in Coupang, there is’Chu Shin-soo’ in Shinsegae

[미래경제 김금영 기자] The distribution industry is bustling with Coupang and Shinsegae. In addition to Coupang’s listing in the US and the alliance with Naver of Shinsegae, the competition strategy is spreading to sports star marketing.

Coupang shares, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the 11th (local time), closed at $49.25, up 40.71% ($14.25) from the public offering price of $35.

According to Yahoo Finance, Coupang’s market cap stood at $8.85 billion (approximately 10 trillion won) based on the closing price, and raised $4.55 billion (approximately 5.16 trillion won) from this IPO. It is known that one.

E-Mart’s movement against Coupang has also begun. On the 10th, the day before Coupang’s listing, news that E-Mart and Naver will form an alliance by exchanging stakes with each other came to the distribution industry.

As a result, it was observed that Shinsegae, which had weakened in online shopping mall SSG.com’s transaction volume of 3,900 trillion won, will shoot Coupang through a partnership with Naver, although it was strong offline last year, with annual sales exceeding 20 trillion won on a consolidated basis last year.

This is not the only war between Coupang and the New World. Sports star marketing is also actively developing each.

In the case of Coupang, it raised about 5 trillion won in funding, raising the industry’s interest in where to invest it. While the reinforcement of the full-filment system (a service that delivers products, stores, packs, and manages inventory on behalf of the seller) is being talked about, Coupang’s video streaming service, Coupang Play, has been reinforced.

Since December of last year, Coupang has been providing Coupang Play, a service that provides various videos such as movies and dramas over the Internet, to subscribers of paid membership’Coupang Wow’ as a bonus.

However, when the service was launched, the industry was dubious. Global companies such as Netflix, as well as domestic companies such as Wave and Watcha, are competing fiercely.

Among them, Coupang put up sports star Son Heung-min as the trick. It was revealed on the 3rd of this month that all Tottenham Hotspur games are provided for free through Coupang Play.

Coupang Play broadcasts the match of Tottenham Hotspur, which is loved by domestic soccer fans, among the Premier League clubs in real time, thanks to Son Heung-min’s performance. At 3 a.m. on the 5th, the Fulham exhibition was broadcast live.

Coupang Play is a strategy to attract sports fans’ attention by uploading the highlights of not only Tottenham games but also six other Premier League teams per round.

Amazon, one of Coupang’s role models, started broadcasting the American Football League (NFL) and Men’s Pro Tennis (ATP) in 2017, and provided live broadcasts of the British Professional Football League (EPL) game in 2019 to prime subscribers. It has been well received.

Seonghan Kim, general director of Coupang Play, said, “We added a real-time broadcast service to Coupang Play so that Coupang Wow members can conveniently watch the Premier League soccer game live anywhere. We will strengthen and provide differentiated services.”

If there is Son Heung-min in Coupang, there is Choo Shin-soo in Shinsegae. Shinsegae announced on the 23rd of last month that it will sign a main contract to acquire 100% of SK Wyverns’ stake in the professional baseball team held by SK Telecom for 100 billion won.

This was also a unique move of a large retailer, but the news of the signing of the SSG Landers (new name for the baseball team) joining the SSG Landers for an annual salary of 2.7 billion won with Shin-soo Choo, who was a major league free agent, surprised baseball fans and the distribution industry.

At the time of the acquisition of the baseball team, Shinsegae said, “We look forward to influencing new customers through the development of baseball-related PL (own brand) products, creating synergy by combining baseball with brand power such as E-Mart and SSG.com.”

Shinsegae’s strategy is to light this synergy with Shinsoo Choo. He signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2001 and was promoted to the big leagues in 2005.

After that, he went through the Cleveland Indians, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Texas Rangers, leaving the record for the most home runs and RBIs for Asian players. It’s not unusual to retire, but it’s still both competitive and topical.

Not only baseball, but also appeared in various entertainment programs and built a favorable image. JTBC’Strangers’ appeared with his family and became a hot topic by revealing his life in the United States, and in JTBC’s’Emergency Meeting’, a meeting with Jeon Hyun-moo, a resembled broadcaster, made him laugh.

The voice of the related industry is that Shinsegae’s Shin-soo Choo effect has already begun. On the day when the news of Choo Shin-soo’s joining SSG Landers was delivered, a lot of attention was poured into the real-time search word on the Internet portal site, so that Choo Shin-soo rose to the top for a long time. In addition, he received a good response when he decided to use 1 billion won of his annual salary for social contribution activities.

On the afternoon of yesterday (11th), after returning home on the afternoon of the 25th of last month, after two weeks of self-isolation, more than 100 reporters visited the scene to watch Shinsoo Choo in a practice match against the Lotte Giants.

At the first meeting with the SSG Landers squad, Lee Tae-yang, who surrendered his number 17 to right-handed pitcher Lee Tae-yang, was reported to have presented a Swiss luxury watch brand Roger De V, which is worth tens of millions of won.

An industry insider said, “Sports is a representative killer content that is useful for capturing the attention of consumers and occupying time. In particular, competent sports stars such as Son Heung-min and Choo Shin-soo have both topicality and a positive effect on enhancing the brand image. Accordingly, competition for attracting customers and strengthening competitiveness is expected to develop more actively in the distribution industry.”