A chubby pink bear with round eyes and an endearing expression — Lotte Homeshopping's original character Bellygom is broadening its reach across retail, food and beauty through a growing string of collaborations, expanding the landscape for retailer-owned character intellectual property.
Lotte Homeshopping launched the "Daiso x Bellygom" series on Saturday in partnership with the ultra-low-price lifestyle goods chain Daiso, according to the company and industry sources. The lineup features more than 60 products — plush toys, stationery and home décor items — all built around the Bellygom character. The two companies had offered a preview last month, releasing three Bellygom shopping bags exclusively at Daiso-operated stores; the bags sold out 200,000 sets within a week, signaling strong demand ahead of the full launch.
"By partnering with Daiso, which has been actively courting customers in their teens and 20s, we can build a broader fan base for Bellygom while also driving sales through merchandise priced between 1,000 and 5,000 won," a Lotte Homeshopping official said.
Bellygom is a pink bear character Lotte Homeshopping developed in 2018. Its appealing design quickly won over the MZ generation — a demographic spanning millennials and Gen Z — well beyond its original role as a corporate mascot. The character now has more than 1.6 million followers across social media platforms including YouTube (670,000) and TikTok (810,000).
Riding that popularity, Bellygom has been expanding into other industries. It is selling an oral beauty supplement called "Edible PDRN," developed with CJ Group's inner-beauty brand Inneov, through offline channels, and has kept up a consistent collaboration with Max, the mascot of global hotel search platform HotelsCombined. Since late last year, it has also been rolling out co-branded menu items and merchandise — including keyrings and shopping bags — with sandwich brand Hong Ruei Zhen.
Bellygom has also contributed to synergies within the Lotte Group. In 2022, the character was placed front and center at "Loki Day," an integrated shopping festival involving Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart and Lotte Himart. In May last year, a large-scale public exhibition and pop-up store featuring an oversized Bellygom installation at Lotte Premium Outlets' Uiwang location drew crowds of family shoppers.
The expanding collaborations have translated into consistent sales growth for Bellygom itself. Merchandise sales in the first half of this year rose 30 percent from the same period last year. Trend-driven products have also played a role — among them "mallangi," a squishy toy popular with consumers in their teens through 30s. A Bellygom mallangi giveaway event held last month on Stationery Street in Seoul's Changsin-dong drew lines of shoppers waiting for the store to open.
spa@heraldcorp.com
