Tesco’s subway virtual store

Ambient marketing meets mobile commerce. This project coming from Korea is awesome. It’s an award winning campaign and a case-study to be analyzed by sociologists at the same time! In South Korea people spend a lot of time commuting and they don’t really have much time (nor will) for super market shopping. So, here is the idea: Tesco (Homeplus in Korea) created a virtual store in the subway where commuters can buy their groceries out of a virtual wall.

They just need to scan QR codes with their smartphones, products are added to their virtual cart and they get delivered to their homes as soon as they are back. I can only say “wow”!!!!

The results of the initiative are impressive also in terms of numbers: online sales between November 2010 and January 2011 increased by 130 percent, with the number of registered members rising by 76 percent.

The agency is Cheil Worldwide, Seoul, Korea. The campaign just won Grand Prix in Media, and Gold Lions for Direct and Outdoor.

If you want to dig into the details, check the one-sheet project overview below.