Hello. We're Realworld, the playable content platform. Even at this very moment, various companies and organizations are reaching out to Realworld. When we listen to their stories, their purposes may vary, but they commonly come down to the question: 'How can we attract more people to our regions and spaces?'
Realworld works tirelessly to plan and execute solutions for our clients' concerns. And we deliver results. The Gyeonggi Western Region Culture & Tourism Council pop-up store 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' that successfully concluded last fall was no exception. We present the success story of the Gyeonggi Western Region Culture & Tourism Council pop-up store 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece,' which achieved performance far exceeding its KPIs.
Project Overview and Concept
The 'Gyeonggi Western Region Culture & Tourism Council' is an administrative cooperative body launched in May 2019, formed by seven municipalities in Gyeonggi Province's western region to collaborate in culture and tourism, aiming to revitalize the cultural tourism industry in the western region. These seven municipalities are Hwaseong, Bucheon, Ansan, Pyeongtaek, Siheung, Gimpo, and Gwangmyeong. Our goal for Realworld was to plan and operate a pop-up store promoting the tourism resources of these seven cities in Gyeonggi's western region.
The pop-up store location was Realworld Seongsu, which has emerged as a hot spot in Seongsu-dong. We brainstormed extensively on how to transform this space, which normally operates as a cafe. As a result, instead of typical tourist destination promotion, Realworld proposed a film production company concept to provide an immersive pop-up store experience with story and concept. The seven cities would be reborn as seven different movie genres.
Realworld Seongsu transformed into a film company office to visually implement the movie studio concept. We expressed the whirlwind of ideas through tourist destination photos and sensibly recreated a 'film director's study.' As a result, some passersby even mistook it for an actual movie pop-up store and visited. The photo zone utilizing large LED displays provided participants with an experience of becoming movie stars.
Operating the 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' Pop-up Store
Participants in the 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' pop-up store become national actors preparing for their next work, receiving a casting call from their respected idol 'Guristopher Nullan.' Receiving the extraordinary proposal of being given the opportunity to choose from seven scripts, 'I' must examine the seven scripts and select a life's masterpiece. The seven scripts are movies inspired by the seven cities of Gyeonggi's western region, and through missions examining these scripts, visitors experience the charm of these cities.
If you think the seven cities' missions are all similar with only slightly different content, you'd be mistaken. Based on each city's landmarks and reborn as movies of unique genres, the missions feature distinctive storylines for each city and various immersive technologies including QR/AR/web view, providing an experience like watching seven independent films.
The operational staff for 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' consisted of actual actors, models, and MCs, contributing to higher participant satisfaction. These staff members played roles as film company employees, assistant directors, and photographers, interacting with participants to create a bright and vibrant atmosphere.
Additionally, fitting the actor and movie concept, we held events providing roses and popcorn just for visiting, and offered prize draw events for satisfaction survey participants. We also provided actual printed poster photos after shooting, designing the experience so participants would feel like movie protagonists until leaving the pop-up store.
Performance Evaluation of 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece'
The 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' pop-up store ran for seven days from September 18 to September 24, 2024. What results did it achieve? Looking at visitor numbers first, 3,629 people visited, far exceeding the KPI of 3,000. Even mathematically dividing this, it means over 500 people visited daily, enough to make Realworld Seongsu bustling. With 400 visitors on weekdays and over 600 on weekends, we can definitely say it was a box office success. Moreover, it heated up online by achieving viral reach exceeding 1000% of the previous year's SNS mentions during the same period.
Of course, just having a successful pop-up store isn't enough. We mustn't forget the original purpose of revitalizing tourism in the seven cities of Gyeonggi's western region. Looking at participants' reactions to 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece,' we can see it was very helpful in improving favorability and awareness of these cities. Particularly, in surveys asking which regions they'd like to visit, responses were generally evenly distributed across regions. Each city's charm reached participants evenly without being skewed toward one place.
In qualitative data from participant reviews, rather than quantitative indicators, we could easily find feedback like 'So creative and well-made' and 'I came in not knowing it was a regional pop-up, but it was so fun.'
The Best Choice for Experiencing Spaces: Realworld
Someone might ask, 'Didn't it succeed just because it was a pop-up store in Seongsu-dong?' However, no matter how good the location, if it were a pop-up store with poor content and nothing for participants to experience, it wouldn't have succeeded even if located in other commercial districts instead of Seongsu-dong. Though not located on Seongsu-dong's main street, the differentiated concept and playable content for participants led the 'In Search of Life's Masterpiece' pop-up store to success.
Realworld demonstrated through results why Realworld is the leader in the experience industry. Realworld's success stories don't end here and will continue collaborating with companies and organizations across various industries to create amazing results. We'll continue sharing Realworld's success cases. Thank you.