Lotte Department Store said on the 9th that it will recruit the second class of "Lotte Department Store Ambassadors" as part of efforts to strengthen content marketing to increase customer inflow.
Lotte Department Store Ambassador is an influencer training program in which creators directly experience new department store pop-ups and brand opening events and produce them as social networking service (SNS) content.
Recruitment for the second class runs from the 12th to the 19th. Anyone can apply regardless of age or residence. In particular, to increase content related to regional stores, the program will expand selection of "regional specialist creators."
It reflects the rise in regional travel demand among foreign tourists and the increased use of SNS for information searches. In fact, a video in which a first-class ambassador introduced Lotte Department Store's Busan main store in Japanese received an average of more than 100 direct messages (DMs) from Japanese customers asking for information.
Lotte Department Store will fully cover interview transportation costs for ambassadors living in regional areas and will also run a "regional specialist mission" in collaboration with local governments. It also plans to operate "Local Trip," a content tour that selects a representative city each month and introduces local stores.
The first class, launched on May 5, recorded a competition rate of about 100 to 1. Participants produced a total of 795 pieces of content over three months, and cumulative views reached 19.82 million.
Some content also led to actual sales growth. Content related to the "Hyundaegimul" pop-up held at Jamsil Lotte World Mall on Jun. 6 surpassed 500,000 views. The department store said the average spend per customer at the pop-up increased by more than 80% compared with the same event a year earlier.
Choi Seong-cheol, head of Lotte Department Store AI Studio, said, "With content that spans local and global, we plan to strengthen touchpoints with domestic and overseas customers and, together with creators, build a new content retail ecosystem."