29CM categorizes its partner brands by tier, with top-tier brands playing a key role in the platform’s growth. These brands have a strong impact on areas such as attracting new partners, increasing user engagement, growing monthly active users, and driving sales. 29CM actively supports top-tier brands in promoting new products and campaigns to a wider audience, creating opportunities to grow sales together and foster mutual growth.

Top-tier brands are already well-known and popular among many people, so they don’t need to rely on discounts for additional exposure. Their existing sales volume is already high, leaving little reason to offer deep discounts that would reduce profit margins. In particular, excessive discounting can damage their brand image and make them appear as low-end brands, so they manage their pricing strategies very carefully.

Black Friday is an important promotional opportunity for 29CM’s partner brands to boost both brand awareness and sales. However, top-tier brands already have strong recognition and solid sales performance, so they don’t feel the need to participate at the expense of reduced profits. In particular, they tend to avoid heavy discounting, as it can make their brand appear less premium.

When popular top-tier brands do not participate in Black Friday, users who are interested in those brands may lose interest, drop off, or not open the app at all. As a result, 29CM recognized that it was missing out on major opportunities for increased traffic, click-through rates, and GMV during its most important sales event.

29CM is a leading lifestyle shopping platform, especially prominent in women’s fashion e-commerce. Since Black Friday brings in a large number of users, it gives top-tier brands a valuable opportunity to engage with their fans, strengthen relationships, and build loyalty. It also serves as a powerful moment for brands to share their values and philosophy, turning many new users into loyal followers.

The idea was inspired by offline brand popup stores. Typically, popup stores operate for a limited period in a temporary space, offering special exhibitions and events. Brand fans visit these stores to participate in various events, win prizes, or purchase discounted products. We aimed to recreate this experience online by designing a system where many fans could join the Brand Popup event, and selected participants would receive prizes. Just like offline popup stores, creating a lively and crowded atmosphere that naturally draws the attention of passersby was also an important part of the concept.

The Brand Popup Home was designed to showcase participating popular brands and recreate the bustling atmosphere of an offline popup store through a large volume of user comments. To achieve this, the home was structured into two sections. The first section captures attention with each brand’s signature lookbook image and provides details such as the number of comments and shares, offering an indirect view of user engagement with the event. The second section presents user comments in an infinite scroll format, simulating the energy of a crowded offline space and allowing users to intuitively sense the high level of participation.

The brand home is composed of three main sections. The first section, similar to the main home, displays the lookbook image, brand logo, number of comments, and shares. Additionally, a "like" icon is included to allow users to express interest in the brand and receive future updates. The second section presents a brief overview of the special gift offered by the brand, designed to spark user interest. The third section reveals the full content of comments that were previously truncated to four lines on the main home, allowing users to see in detail how others responded to the brand.

The product information page provides not only the basics—such as product image, name, season, and quantity—but also includes a message written directly by the brand explaining why the item was chosen as a special gift. This approach goes beyond simply offering a giveaway, aiming to convey the value of the gift and the brand’s sincerity. Additionally, the page includes comprehensive event details, such as participation requirements, event period, and winner announcement dates, ensuring users can clearly understand and participate in the event.

When users start writing a comment, they may feel unsure about what to say. To help guide them, three sample questions are provided: “Why do you like this brand?”, “What makes this brand unique?”, and “When and how did you become a fan of this brand?” In addition, since users can enter the comment input page directly from the brand home without viewing the gift details page, a “View Gift Details” button is included on the comment page to allow easy access to the gift information. Once the comment is submitted, the user is redirected to the brand’s home, and a modal appears confirming that the event participation is complete.

Through the new Brand Popup initiative, 29CM successfully brought in a large number of popular brands that had not previously participated in Black Friday, contributing to meaningful traffic for the platform’s largest campaign of 2023. The Brand Popup home attracted 82,708 visits, individual brand homes recorded 75,046 visits, and a total of 7,283 comments were submitted, reflecting a high level of user engagement. This strong user response had a direct impact, contributing to a more than threefold increase in Black Friday sales compared to the previous year.