The popularity of Mnet's ‘Street Women Fighters' (SWF) made the dancers the talk of the town throughout 2021 and 2022. DiiVER sponsored the show, creating merchandise for each team and props to match the filming space. However, DiiVER didn't see much change despite the show's success. If anything, we got many inquiries asking if they could buy our merchandise because of the exposure. Why didn't DiiVER change dramatically? To answer this question, we'd like to point out why the sponsorship project quietly passed.
01. Because we can't sell the merchandise we made.
We received many inquiries asking, "Can I buy SWF's merch?" but we couldn't sell them because DiiVER didn't have the production/sales rights. We started thinking about whether we should sign a contract or make a proposal to utilize the IP, as it seemed to be ineffective because we couldn't sell it.
However, since DiiVER is much closer to B2B solutions and merchandising for branding, we thought, do we need it? The merchandise commerce market is growing around MCNs and the entertainment industry, and a lot of personalized merchandise commerce is also emerging. In particular, MCNs with 'IP' are marketing aggressively and growing. Suppose DiiVER had signed a contract with Mnet to produce, sell, and distribute SWF merchandise. In that case, things might have been different in this market. Still, it would have been a one-time deal because if the project stabilized, Mnet, which has the IP, would have produced and sold it directly.
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02. People wanted the merchandise, not DiiVER.
People who found DiiVER through SWF didn't want to use the service; they just wanted to get SWF merchandise. Some may have realized that DiiVER makes onboarding kits and merchandise and thought they should try it out later. Again, as a B2B company, we've got some name recognition and awareness of what we do.
Suppose we had actively communicated that we were a company that could do everything from planning to production of official merchandise after the sponsorship. In that case, we might have gotten a different effect, such as going beyond the sponsorship to PPL, collaborating on future merch, Etc. But at that time, we didn't need an extensive marketing campaign, so we were satisfied to leave it as a portfolio.
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03. What did we aim for? What did we want?
It's even more important than the above reasons. At the time, people didn't know DiiVER at all, so we proceeded with a light-hearted idea that it would be good to get exposure. We think we can judge that it was successful for a light-hearted purpose.
After this exposure, since DiiVER has 'Street Woman Fighter' in its portfolio, it will be able to catch the eyes of people who want to get information from DiiVER's various channels and leave a good impression, such as you who are reading this article right now. Search keywords may catch it, so it can be said that DiiVER has achieved the first goal of 'exposure.'
So DiiVER is looking back at our past marketing our portfolio and trying to figure out if this is the right path, and if so, how and at what pace so that we can develop a strategy that makes sense for us and our clients.
