Weirdest Tie-in Ever

So I was just up at the old Homever in Jung-dong, Bucheon, and I was walking past the wall of liquors when I spotted a case of soju with some bottles taped to it. Now anyone who lives in Korea will know that this is what they call a one-plus-one, a free product taped to a product you pay for. These products may be related (e.g. a travel-size bottle of Head and Shoulders rinse taped to a family-size bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo) or unrelated ( a small pack of instant coffee taped to a box of cookies), but they don’t always have to make sense. I leaned in to discover that the smaller product was, in this case, Elastine shampoo.

Closer inspection revealed that a Jinro Cham Iseul-brand soju-related message seemed to be written into the tape used to bind the one-plus-one relationship into existence.

It says in red “An offer of gratitude upon the sale of the one billionth bottle of Cham Iseul Fresh”. What’s more, though, I checked and discovered that this very special message was written right onto the shampoo bottle, meaning that these bottles of Elastine shampoo were commissioned specifically to commemorate the sale of the one billionth bottle of Cham Iseul Fresh and for no other reason, making this not only a one-plus-one, but a full-on tie-in.  Why shampoo?

~ by joemondello on February 4, 2008.