Gmarket turns monthly sales into a fake rock festival — 210M views, ADFEST Silver

Gmarket runs its biggest promotions on set dates every month, but a sale is easy to ignore when every competitor offers one. The Shinsegae-owned e-commerce platform set out to reposition itself as a 'cheerful and lively' brand for all ages, and chose music as the vehicle: a campaign built around the idea of enjoying shopping the way you enjoy a rock festival.

With Seoul agency Chai Communication, Gmarket licensed Korean rock and pop acts whose songs carry strong nostalgia — Kim Kyung-ho, Park Wan-kyu, Cherry Filter, Seol Woon-do, Kim Jong-seo, Hwanhee, Min Kyung-hoon, Ailee, Jaurim and H.O.T., ten teams — and had them perform their signature hits with the lyrics reworked to name shopping categories and the promotions. From September 2025 to January 2026 the team released 36 serialized short films, each new one tied to that month's event such as the G-Rock Festival sale on the first days of the month, Big Smile Day or the Lunar New Year sale.

Treating the songs as content rather than conventional spots made the campaign feel like a music program with a schedule: Korean press described the films as 'ads people wait for'. The numbers backed that up — the 36 films accumulated 210 million YouTube views over the five months, and products featured in the ads saw sales rise by up to 2.6 times and unit volume by up to 3.3 times against the previous month, led by fresh and processed food categories such as pork, beef and crab.

The campaign then swept through both regional and domestic awards: a Bronze in Music at Spikes Asia 2026 in Singapore, a Silver in Creative Strategy at ADFEST 2026 in Pattaya, plus Korea's Ad of the Year Grand Prize in integrated media, the Seoul Video Ad Festival Grand Prix and more — around nine category wins across six festivals, validating the bet that a commerce event could be built as music-led brand content.