Think you work too hard? Spare a thought for South Koreans. It’s said to be the busiest, hardest working nation in the world. Everything revolves around working life, and for everything, including their choice of brands and supermarket, convenience is a decisive factor.
E-Mart, one of the budget supermarkets in South Korea, doesn’t benefit from the same level of penetration as many of its rivals. So, rather than trying to force Korean workers to go out of their way to shop there (an impossible task if ever there were one) they cleverly decided to take the store to the people. Equipping strategically placed helium balloons with WiFi, the retailer created the ‘flying store’, making it simple for workers to do their groceries with E-Mart on their mobile device, all across the city. People connected to the free WiFi, downloading the E-Mart app and coupons, resulting in a 157% increase in online shopping, and 50,000 downloads of the app.
We recently saw Google’s Loon project look to overcome connectivity issues in Africa in a similar way. For E-Mart it’s a great example of overcoming fundamental infrastructural issues, with innovative digital thinking.
