AK Plaza's "otaku (mania) marketing" led by animation is translating into results. Since it strengthened its subculture (nonmainstream culture) specialization strategy, the Hongdae store has posted double-digit sales growth every year. Anime and gaming fandoms are becoming core demand groups in retail.
AK Plaza is a distribution affiliate of Aekyung Group that operates department store and shopping mall businesses. With Aekyung Industrial Co., which sells cosmetics and household goods, sold to Taekwang Group, it has effectively become a structure that exclusively handles the retail institutional sector within the group.
In recent years, fandom marketing leveraging subculture such as animation and games has become the mainstream in retail. As otaku culture, once treated as the domain of a small group of enthusiasts, has gone mainstream among the Jalpa generation (born from the late 1990s to the early to mid-2010s), it has become core content that draws customers with strong fandoms and purchasing power.
According to the related industry on the 16th, AK Plaza is expanding its business using intellectual property (IP), including Japanese animation and domestic webtoons, to the Suwon store following the Hongdae store. Following the opening of Animate, the nation's largest animation specialty store, plans for pop-up store (temporary store) events for popular animations are continuing.
After a renovation reflecting the characteristics of the commercial district since 2021, AK Plaza's Hongdae store is now called a representative "anime holy site" in Korea. Since the opening of Animate, which sells animation, comics and game merchandise, Hongdae's sales have continued double-digit growth every year from 2021 through last year.
Last year, Hongdae's sales rose about 17.3% from a year earlier to about 98.2 billion won. Sales, which were about 27.7 billion won in 2021, steadily increased to 42.7 billion won in 2022, 67.9 billion won in 2023, and 83.7 billion won in 2024. The average annual growth rate over the past five years is about 38.5%.
Amid intensifying competition among department stores and mixed-use malls, AK Plaza benchmarked subculture hubs such as Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan, to build a differentiated identity. Akihabara is a representative otaku commercial area with clusters of stores for animation, games and figures. In fact, as anime-related stores thrived around AK Plaza, foot traffic increased and the atmosphere of the surrounding commercial district changed, according to assessments.
Retailers are also focusing on the fact that spending on animation and related categories is relatively less affected by economic fluctuations. As "digging" culture, which delves deeply into personal tastes, has taken hold among the Jalpa generation, it is seen as underpinning solid demand.
In addition, fandom-based consumption tends to be less price-sensitive and to lead to repeat purchases. With strong demand among people in their teens and 20s, department stores and malls can expect not only to expand the draw of younger shoppers but also to extend spending to tenant stores such as restaurants and cafes.
Hyundai Department Store is accelerating efforts to target game otaku. It plans to make pop-up stores in collaboration with global game companies a regular feature and bring them into permanent stores to develop them into core department store content. As the "Roblox" pop-up run at the Pangyo store last year proved a hit, the company plans to expand both stores and content this year.
HDC Holdings Co. I'Park Mall is also showing growth by expanding content aimed at fandom consumption in games, animation and K-pop. It opened a space called "Dopamine Station" last July to focus exclusively on related content and held more than 780 pop-ups. Last year, I'Park Mall's total sales (transaction amount) rose about 20% from the previous year to 650 billion won.