Shopee Guns For Eyeballs With K-Pop’s Blackpink Endorsement

Under the deal, Blackpink have also starred in a commercial film and played a live gig in Indonesia to promote Shopee’s 12.12 Birthday Sale. A YG Official Store will also be launched on Shopee across markets in the region, offering Kpop fans access to a range of official merchandise.

Shopee’s typically vibrant commercial with Blackpink has already won over 17m YouTube views and the company feels this reflects its ambitions to be the leading e-commerce retailer in the region by engaging a young mobile-first generation.

Shopee’s CEO, Chris Feng, said that the Shopee 12.12. Birthday Sale was initiated to thank all shoppers, sellers and brands for their “unending support” and to share its success with them. He added that the company has taken “giant strides” in the past year and cemented its position as the leading e-commerce platform in the region.

“We look forward to working with [Blackpink and] YG Group to co-create exciting initiatives that can engage with, and bring Shopee users from all across the region together; starting with Shopee 12.12 Birthday Sale,” he said.

Hae Min You, director of business development department of YG Entertainment and YG PLUS said Shopee’s vision and values are “very much in line” with YG’s. YG Group’s key values centre around creation and innovation, and Shopee’s success as the leading e-commerce player in the region is a testament to its forward-looking approach, he said.

“We are confident that this partnership will allow us to tap on Shopee’s extensive reach to further expand the YG branding, and to collaboratively create more unique experiences for YG fans and Shopee users across the region,” he added.

The 4-year old company is still a challenger brand in terms of market share – a mere 0.1% (US$912k) share of their category spend (since Q116). But Shopee has increased spend 3x in the current quarter (US$223k) and has secured agreements in diverse platforms – the Malaysian Premier League, music streaming platform Joox’s Thailand Top 100 and Cycle Asia Philippines – in the last two quarters. This marks a clear strategy to invest ahead of its bonanza birthday sale in the busy pre-Christmas period.