#73 2011 · Tesco Homeplus · Grocery retaildead-time
Homeplus papered Seoul subway walls to look like shelves — commuters shopped the wait with QR codes
the problem
Becoming Korea's #1 grocer meant outbuilding E-mart's store count — unaffordable
background
In 2011 Homeplus (Tesco's Korean venture) was stuck at #2 behind E-mart, and the gap was store count — a race that could only be bought with real estate. Meanwhile Koreans worked some of the longest hours in the OECD and dreaded the weekly shop; smartphone penetration was exploding.
Cheil Worldwide's Seoul office papered subway platform screen doors with life-size photographs of supermarket shelves, laid out exactly like the real aisles. Commuters scanned QR codes into a cart while waiting for the train; groceries arrived home the same evening. The store had come to the dead time.
the move
Life-size shelf photographs went up in subway stations; commuters scanned QR codes while waiting and groceries arrived home the same day. The store came to the dead time.
the payoff
Online sales grew ~130%; 20+ virtual stores followed and Homeplus took the online grocery lead without opening a store.
what came after
Online sales grew around 130%, registered users jumped, and more than twenty virtual stores followed; the campaign took the first Grand Prix in Cannes Lions' new Media category and became the template pinned to every O2O retail deck of the decade.
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references
- [1]Tesco virtual supermarket in a subway stationdesignboom, 2011designboom.com
- [2]Homeplus — historyWikipedia, 2026en.wikipedia.org