Download Did You LINE Today? Strategies for Creating LINE Online to Offline

2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Did You LINE Today? Strategies for Creating LINE Online to Offline
Customer Experiences
Chien-I Weng
Department of Information
Management, National Taiwan
University of Science and
Technology
[email protected]
Hsi-Peng Lu
Department of Information
Management, National Taiwan
University of Science and
Technology
[email protected]
of new words. For example, the name of one of the
more popular IM applications – LINE– has been
repurposed as a verb, with users encouraging each
other to “Please, LINE me.”
LINE was developed by a Korean subsidiary of
NHN Japan, allowing users to exchange text messages,
voice calls or images through the Internet or mobile
networks for free. LINE was launched on June 23,
2011, two years after the launch of a similar App –
WhatsApp. However, WhatsApp cost US$0.99 to
download from the Apple App Store, while LINE was
offered completely free and included an everexpanding range of appealing emoticon-style stickers
which allowed users to add emotional nuance and
emphasis to their messages. This particularly appealed
to users in Asia. LINE was launched in Taiwan with a
large-scale marketing campaign, including celebrity
endorsements and TV spots, with the intent of
leveraging the close social ties between people in
Taiwan and other countries and territories in Southeast
Asia and the greater China region to spread the App’s
visibility. More importantly, the expansion into Taiwan
allowed LINE to leverage Taiwan’s expertise in
marketing IT and mobile communications products to
steal a march on other IM services.
At the LINE Conference Tokyo 2014, CEO Akira
Morikawa revealed that the application was adding
new users at a rate of 70,000 per hour, and had a global
user base of 560 million, of which 170 million had
been active in the previous month. Every day, LINE
users sent 13 billion messages, 3.4 million voice calls,
and 170 million Timeline posts and messages,
respectively representing annual growth of 87%, 120%
and 202%. In addition, LINE Stickers had emerged as
a revolutionary new communication medium,
transcending international borders and languages to
become a common language among people all over the
world, with over 18 billion stickers sent every day [1].
Just as LINE was beginning to attract attention,
additional add-ons were published to allow users to
Abstract
The popularity smart phones, mobile applications
(Apps) have exploded in recent years creating
unlimited business opportunities. Today’s customers
desire to acquire not only software and products, but
also memorable experiences. Using O2O (Online to
Offline, Offline to Online) marketing strategies,
customers interact with software and products in the
real world that doing so will help them increase their
imagination and enjoyment, providing them with
different and memorable experiences. An exploratory
qualitative study was undertaken using case study
“LINE”. Data were collected from secondary
documents and interviews with customers about
LINE’s O2O services for creating customer
experiences over the past three years. This study
focuses on LINE’s integration of online App-based
services and offline real-world marketing, categorizes
these services into five types of experiential strategy
models based on their different characteristics. We
conclude with several lessons related to the integration
of the virtual and physical worlds to create customer
O2O experiences.
1. Introduction
In recent years, with the development of mobile
communication technologies and the widespread
popularity of smart phones, tablet computers and other
mobile devices, consumers have gradually become
reliant on instant messaging (IM) applications as a
primary means of communication. These applications
not only provide immediate and free messaging, but
can also transmit a range of other digital files including
voice messages, video clips and images. These features
have allowed such applications to emerge as a new
trend in media communications, and their popularity
among users have even contributed to the emergence
1530-1605/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2016.270
Pei-Shan Wei
Department of Information
Management, National Taiwan
University of Science and
Technology
[email protected]
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share games, photos, groups and music, and to handle
in-app payments. While LINE’s basic services served a
social function, the final goal was to create a platform
which conveniently integrated the user’s social life,
entertainment and consumption, creating a bridge
between users, and between users and businesses. The
key to this effort was a concept referred to as O2O,
which stands for “Online to Offline, Offline to Online”.
O2O is designed to combine online and offline
activity to create an integrated marketing business
model and has recently begun to attract considerable
interest. O2O is narrowly defined as a means by which
customers are motivated by online activity to purchase
goods and services at a physical store. It is broadly
defined as a means of transporting the consumer from
an online environment into a physical environment,
using online advertising (e.g., promotions, discounts,
consumer information, and services) to transmit
information from offline stores to online users. These
users are then attracted to visit offline stores and
venues, thus using the internet as a front-end for
promoting offline sales and thus boosting offline
“traffic” [2]. The goal of O2O is integrate the virtual
and physical worlds, and transcend online/offline
boundaries to completely satisfy consumer demand
while collecting information on consumer demand
preferences,
thus
allowing
merchants
to
comprehensively improve their marketing efforts
through precisely defining consumer groups, providing
customized
services,
monitoring
marketing
effectiveness, controlling costs, and better integrating
supply chains.
Meyer and Schwager [3] defined customer
experience as ‘the internal and subjective response that
customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a
company’ (p. 118). Customer experience is
conceptualized as a psychological construct, which is a
holistic, subjective response resulting from customer
contact with the retailer and anything that allows
customers to feel personally engaged with and
immersed in their surroundings [4]. In terms of
customer experience, this can include processes which
attract individuals to various products and allow them
to discover or create a personal connection with an
object or brand [5]. When a brand makes a particular
impact in the customer’s mind-space or life, the
customer will retain a meaningful memory of the
experience [6].
Today’s customers desire to acquire not only goods
and products, but also memorable experiences. Digital
service providers not only offer software, but also offer
activities and services which integrate the real and
virtual worlds to provide customers with greater
opportunities to interact with products and brands, thus
producing profound and moving experiences.
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Therefore, real-world retail design not only provides
consumers an opportunity to experience the intrinsic
value of goods and services, but also gives consumers
access to different sensory experiences which can
impart a range of messages related to the products or
brands. In the past, studies of customer experience
mostly treated real and virtual worlds as separate [7, 8,
9, 10], and few studies have examined the use of
digital service platforms and environments to create an
integrated
online/offline
consumer
experience
combining products, services and consumer interaction.
This study focuses on LINE’s integration of online
App-based services and offline real-world marketing,
assessing the creation of strategies by the O2O
customer experience. We conclude with suggestions
for other service providers make good use of powerful
O2O strategies to create customer experiences.
2. Theoretical background- Strategic
experiential modules (SEMs)
Schmitt [11, 12] noted that experiential marketing
focuses on perception, behavior, interaction, emotion
and cognition to create an emotional value which
exceeds the functional value of the product. Experience
includes the overall essence of life, normally created
through direct observation or participation. Schmitt
believed that the greatest difference between traditional
marketing and experiential marketing lay in the fact
that traditional marketing focused on product features
and benefits, assumed competition among similar
products, assumed that customers are rational, and
adopted
analytical/quantized/explicit
marketing
methods, whereas experiential marketing focused on
the customer’s experience, attempting to compete by
creating a consumer environment which creates value
for the customer, assumes that customers are both
rational and emotional, and adopts diverse/flexible
marketing methods. Figure 1 shows the four key
characteristics of experiential marketing.
Customer
Experience
Methods are
eclectic
Experiential
Marketing
Consumption is a
holistic experience
Customers are
rational and
emotional animals
Figure 1. Characteristics of experiential marketing
(Source: Schmitt [12]).
appeals to target customers’ convergent and divergent
thinking through surprise, intrigue and provocation.
On the other hand, the ‘Act’ marketing seeks to
create long-term patterns of behavior and a lifestylebased customer experience, allowing customers to
experience the results of changed behavior, which then
drives changes in attitude, could enrich their lifestyles
and behaviors.
Finally, the ‘Relate’ experience refers to social
experiences such as the connection with other people
and group, thus helping consumers to establish a
unique social recognition and achieve their desired
social identity and position. RELATE marketing
creates experiences by taking into account individuals’
desires to be part of a social context (e.g., to their selfesteem, being part of a subculture, or a brand
community). Social-identity experiences result from
relating to a reference group or culture. Besides,
customers like to stay with the same brands because
customers have an emotional bond with them and/or
these brands express the customers’ identity and
capture their aspirations [15].
(1) A Focus on Customer Experiences:
Experiences provide sensory, emotional,
cognitive, behavioral, and relational values that
replace functional values.
(2) Consumption as a Holistic Experience: As
customer
experiences
entail
customer
processes and responses, which are affected by
(interactions between) aspects of all the retail
environment,
situation,
and
customer
characteristics, the concept is holistic. We can
said that: Ⱦ It is everything together that
triggers a certain experience.”
(3) Customers are Rational and Emotional
Animals: Customers are emotionally as well as
rationally driven. Furthermore, they are
frequently driven by emotions because
consumption experiences are often directed
toward the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and
fun.
(4) Methods and Tools are Eclectic: The methods
and tools of an experiential marketer are
diverse and multi-faceted. They may be verbal,
taking the traditional format of a focus group,
in-depth interview or questionnaire. Or they
may be visual. There is no dogma here; it all
depends on the objective.
3. Research Method
Exploratory research often relies on secondary
research such as reviewing available literature and/or
data, or qualitative approaches such as informal
discussions with customers. Using secondary data
enables us to conduct studies of high-impact and highinteresting research questions then give more insight
on the future works or potential research.
An exploratory qualitative study was undertaken
using case study “LINE”. Data were collected from
secondary documents include news offered in articles,
LINE official website and interviews with customers
about LINE’s O2O services for creating customer
experiences over the past three years. This study
focuses on LINE’s integration of online App-based
services and offline real-world marketing.
We used RSS feeds to receive timely updates
from related websites including: Business Next,
Chinatimes, The Next Web, TechNode, which are
online publications that delivers an international
perspective on the latest news about Internet
technology and business. These more than 100 “LINE”
related newspaper articles and documents were
analyzed using a comparative, thematic approach
focusing on the detection of “experiences” themes and
the online/ offline marketing strategies.
On the other hand, we interview 10 LINE users to
gain an understanding of LINE’s O2O services for
creating customer experiences. Interviewees were
asked questions including: (1) describe how they
experienced using LINE multiple Apps, (2) talk
Schmitt [12] applied personal psychology and
social behavior models and concepts to propose a
framework of strategic experiential modules (SEMs) in
which experiential marketing strategy designs can be
categorized as being based on five different forms of
interaction: sense, feel, think, act and relate.
The ‘Sense’ experience channels the consumer’s
sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell functions to create
inner joy, excitement and beauty, thus increasing
customer motivation, along with product recognition
and value. Sensory experience directly creates a vivid
and realistic experience of aesthetics [13]. Physical
sense perception varies with the individual’s
surroundings to produce different messages which
elicit different results. “Theme” is one of the most
powerful tools for creating and maintaining a brand’s
aesthetic identity [14].
The ‘Feel’ experience focuses more on its
affective side such as moods and emotions. Marketers
need to understand how various stimuli can drive
consumer sentiment, encourage active participation on
the part of the consumer, and create positive
associations of joy and pride.
The ‘Think’ experiential marketing seeks to create
surprise and excitement, encouraging customers to
engage in creative thinking to re-evaluate the value
conferred by new products and services. THINK
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anything about their attitudes toward LINE FRIENDS
characters (3) how they experience about LINE diverse
arrangement of real-world experiential activities and
marketing strategies.
The data analysis has been executed using the
approach of structured content analysis for semistructured interviews. Two researchers were involved
in the coding process, which helped to safeguard
against the criticism of subjectivity, hermeneutics and
value-load. The interview texts were analyzed line by
line, and pertinent excerpts were assigned provisional
conceptual experiences codes (i.e., Sense, Feel, Think,
Act and Relate) when at least two interviewees spoke
of a similar concept.
LINE stickers can be broadly categorized as free or
paid, with the free sticker series including the basic
LINE FRIENDS character sets such as Brown, Cony,
Moon and James. In addition, merchants were offered
the option to register official accounts by which they
could provide branded sticker sets for free download,
thus using stickers to publicize their brands, products,
services or events. Users then use these stickers in
messages sent to their LINE friends, thus helping the
merchants achieve favorable brand exposure. LINE’s
paid sticker series were released in collaboration with
the publishers and illustrators of popular cartoon
characters in response to customer demand. Topical
and timely Sticker sets were also released to create
topics of conversation, such as the global “Gangam
Style” craze in 2012, or the 2014 World Cup.
According to official reports, Stickers earned the
company US$25.7 million in 4Q13, accounting for
between 20-30% of total revenues [16]. In addition in
April 2014, LINE opened the Creators Market platform
allowing independent content creators to generate their
own sticker sets. Once the stickers are approved by
LINE, they are offered for sale, with revenue split
evenly between LINE and the content creator. After six
months, personalized stickers had been created by over
270,000 registered creators in 145 countries,
generating a total of US$30 million from 35.95 million
sales [17]. In fact, LINE stickers are not the main
feature of the LINE communications software, but
have emerged as a new form of interaction as users
transmit them with their friends.
4. Research Results- How does LINE
create O2O experiences?
Experiential marketing creates marketing strategies
centered around human interests, giving brands a
emotional “human taste” in addition to their rational,
functional benefits. This creates an opportunity for the
customer to experience products as part of their life,
both online and offline. It can also use high technology
to enhance interaction and communication, thus
creating unique and innovative experiences. Based on
these definitions, this study examines the development
of LINE’s O2O services for creating customer
experiences.
According to the results of the data analysis, we
find out LINE’s online and offline strategies,
summarized in the below sections. Over time, these
strategies will help LINE influence customer habits
and lead to the development of a unique lifestyle.
LINE differentiated itself from other IM services
through unique characteristics and strategies to grow
operating revenue to US$200 million in 3Q14, with
170 million active users each month [16].
4.2 Entertaining interactive social games
In addition to communication services, LINE also
offers games. Starting with the July 2012 launch of
LINE Brizzle, LINE now offers about 60 different
games. LINE games have been downloaded 440
million times, and generated US$143 million in
revenue in 1Q14, accounting for 60% of total revenue
[18]. The company’s game development philosophy is
to let players share LINE Games with their LINE
friends, and to interact through game rankings,
invitations and interactive rewards, thus enhancing the
game’s entertainment value and achieving viral
dissemination.
Furthermore, LINE games are designed around
social interaction and to encourage users to invite their
friends to participate, thus achieving viral
dissemination. In addition, LINE Games are designed
to be as simple as possible to use, feature simple
intuitive user interfaces and LINE FRIENDS
characters, with beautiful graphics and highly aesthetic
design, providing the user with a rich and engaging
visual and auditory experience, making them attractive
4.1 Stickers created a break from past
communication modes
Today’s internet users suffer from data overload
and are easily distracted. It is in this context that
images have emerged as one of the most popular forms
of content on the internet and a new mode of
interpersonal communication. The stickers craze began
in Asia, where simply selecting a “You’re the best!”
sticker is much easier than writing out a message in
stroke-based languages. Where users previously had to
type out their messages, now they can express their
thoughts and emotions more efficiently through
stickers, thus speeding up the rate of communication
while simultaneously increasing interaction.
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to casual gamers of all ages attracting many users who
do not otherwise frequently play digital games. In
addition, to ensure the continuous development of new
and high quality games, LINE regularly reviews and
retires games that have peaked in popularity, thus
concentrating resources to provide users with a more
interactive gaming experience, thus developing LINE
Games into a global gaming platform.
services, including those from LINE’s partner
merchants and applications from other internet service
providers. LINE Maps for Indoor-help users find
specific merchants inside department stores, malls and
other large buildings while providing additional
information such as opening hours and telephone
numbers. LINE@ID- used in a more public, open
platform on which users can communicate with a wider
audience.
4.3 Gift economy – get them hooked and then
charge
4.5 Real-world experiential activities:
In the offline world, LINE has developed a diverse
arrangement of real-world experiential activities and
marketing strategies around the popular LINE
FRIENDS characters, thus creating a series of new
business opportunities as follows:
z
Peripheral product boutiques: LINE FRIENDS
Pop-Up Store: These shops sell a range of LINE
FRIENDS products including dolls, figurines,
household items and stationery, rolling out new
products and activities on an irregular basis. The
first store opened in Myeongdong, Korea in 2014,
followed by stores in Taipei and New York, with
future plans for stores in Thailand, Indonesia and
elsewhere.
z
Cross-industry applications: TV advertisements:
LINE has many users in Asia, and the company
has released multiple campaigns of creative
television commercials to introduce the public to
new and existing LINE services. In Thailand, the
ȾCloserȿ campaign won the Silver Medal at
the 2014 International Asia Pacific AdFest [21].
In Taiwan, the “LINE Pokopang” campaign
featured bright colors and fast-paced action to
introduce the game to local audiences.
Highlighting the game’s simple presentation,
engaging features and rich audiovisual elements,
the advertisement made a deep impression with
Taiwan casual gamers and met with high acclaim.
z
Real-world activities and exhibitions: LINE
Games Experience House: A showcase for new
LINE games, providing users with game demos,
downloads and competitions. The venue includes
displays of various LINE characters complete
with QR codes which players can scan with their
smart phones to download and install the various
games. This kind of activity not only brings users
directly into the game play experience, but also
helps LINE game designers learn more about the
preferences and tastes of users in different
regions, allowing them to further improve
products and services to better suit specific needs.
z
Merchandise licensing: LINE Stickers were
instrumental in the successful popularization of
The market features many similar Apps, and most
such Apps are offered free of charge in an attempt to
accumulate a large user base. However, free Apps have
revenue generating potential among certain user groups
and, in the past year, free Apps have actually generated
more revenue than paid Apps through advertising or
in-app upgrades or other purchases to unlock additional
features. Although LINE Games are free to download,
some players become heavily invested in their
performance. When they find themselves unable to
advance through a particularly difficult level, they can
purchase a cheat code or other means of advancing
from LINE Games. While more rational players would
not make such purchases, players who are more
completely immersed in the experience may be
motivated if it allows them to continue advancing
through the game. Therefore, in addition to their
entertainment value, free games also feature many
“purchase points”, providing users with added value in
exchange for in-game payments.
4.4 Building brand loyalty and a holistic
experience through a family of Apps
Since launching as a free instant message platform
in June 2011, LINE has continue to add new services,
leveraging its growing user base and high active user
rate to expand the LINE family of Apps to provide
communications services, digital content, tools, media,
payment gateways and other services. Currently LINE
offers over 60 different Apps, each of which is
completely integrated into the LINE communications
platform, thus providing the user and his/her friends
with a cohesive and comprehensive set of diverse
services. As of June 2014, LINE and its associated
family of Apps had been downloaded more than one
billion times [19]. The rollout of these Apps shows that
users are highly receptive to other LINE app products,
and that they help LINE to build brand trust, relevance
and loyalty. In October 2014, LINE introduced three
new large-scale O2O services [20]: LINE Payallowing smart phone users to purchase a wide range of
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LINE FRIENDS character. As a result of the
active commercialization of Stickers, LINE
FRIENDS character merchandise can be found
everywhere in Japan today. The success of LINE
FRIENDS character has increased the visibility
of the LINE brand. The rollout of this brand
concept and these characters overseas has
brought new revenue sources, such as the
licensing of LINE FRIENDS character to
UNIQLO for use on LINE-themed T-shirts.
that “they have trouble passing up the LINE FRIENDS
characters products because they are super cute.” LINE
has successfully combined network services with realworld activities to play an important role in the
customer’s daily life, gradually moving towards
building a comprehensive platform for life and work.
5. Discussion- LINE O2O strategic
experiential modules
Figure 2 summarizes the findings of this study,
showing that LINE has developed a universal
environment for today’s mobile networks and devices
to satisfy the public’s desire for social interaction and
entertainment. Most interviewees stated that the
development of a variety of LINE applications satisfied
different daily needs in their life, while providing
means for creating topics of interest, social influence
and network externalities. Thus, driving a rapid
increase in the number of users and creating a unique
social phenomenon around the LINE platform.
In addition to function, modern customers demand
that goods and services meet their emotional needs as
well. Experiential marketing approaches focus on the
customer’s experience in interacting with a product or
service, and stress communication with the customer to
ensure that the merchandise can connect with the
customer’s inner feelings and emotions. Schmitt [12]
defined experience as being composed of five elements:
Sense, Feel, Think, Act and Relate. According to the
results of the data analysis , we find out these elements
are treated as follows in the present study: (1) Sense is
defined as the customer’s aesthetic experience
manifested online through LINE Stickers and LINE
Friends, and offline through licensed LINE Friends
merchandise. (2) Feel is defined as the customer’s
sense of interactive entertainment, manifested online
through various interactive games and content, and
offline through activities and exhibitions. (3) Think is
defined as the customer’s interaction with technology,
manifested online through applications which exist on
multiple screens, integrating cell phones, PCs and
televisions in a seamless interactive experience. For
example, LINE Games played on television or PC
feature ads which drive game downloads to smart
phones or table computers. Offline, Think is
experienced through physical interactions with
technologies applications, such as through QRcodes
used to purchase/install games, or through activities
based on augmented reality Apps in which users scan
real-world artifacts to engage in online exploration and
play. (4) Act is defined as long-term behavior and
product loyalty through the continuous release of new
Apps to provide users with added convenience. Offline,
Act takes the form of cross-industry alliances which
create new experiences in customers’ lives and
maintain constant exposure to the LINE brand, such as
through the development of television content to
expand to a younger market. In addition, LINE creates
advertisements to introduce new services and games,
and also has teamed up with established department
stores, restaurants, and taxi services to introduce new
O2O Apps. (5) Relate is defined as one’s connections
with others through LINE’s communication and
community Apps, along with LINE’s official website
Environment
z
Development of mobile technology and internet
z
Widespread use of personal mobile devices
z
Social influence/Network externalities
Life Platform
Human needs
Online services
Offline services
Figure 2. LINE O2O services to fit environment and
fulfill human needs.
The remarkable popularity of LINE FRIENDS
characters and LINE Games has allowed for the
successful development of peripheral offline products,
including LINE FRIENDS character merchandise and
interactive exhibitions. Some interviewees indicated
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First, this study contributes to the value literature
by explain a wide range of App-related usage
behaviors. Previous customer experience literature has
focused on online experience-centric services.
However, the present study results show that the
customers experience is holistic in nature in other kind
of real-world experiential activities. It also supports
research evidence showing that providing well
consumption experience service would contribute to
increase consumer’s perceived values and directly
affect the behavioral intentions of consumers [22, 23].
Second, our results empirically evidenced that
contextual factor especially entertainment factor was
play an important role affecting mobile technology use.
“Playfulness” always has been important part to
humankind no matter in virtual or real world. This
finding demonstrates that consumption values are not
absolutely independent in mobile technology product
function; the correlations between consumption values
and the related service of products need more attention.
This study also makes several practical
contributions. Our findings can help practitioners apply
the results to their marketing strategies. First,
technology is used to improve the quality of human life,
the purpose of the development of mobile technology
and related service are to enhance and enrich
consumers’ lives and satisfy their needs. Developers
should consider the element of usage context into the
mobile App and service design. Second, practitioners
besides enrich the functions of Apps also need to keep
Apps eye-catching, highlight the social aspect of their
Apps and fascinatingly appealing to stimulate
consumers increasing and intense epistemic curiosity
to use Apps. Furthermore, the social element makes a
App “sticky” [24]; therefore, administrators should
provide ways for users to help grow the user base.
With the raise of experiencing economy,
marketers have paid more attention to rethink their
marketing strategy in order to fulfill consumer’s
experience and improve their perceived value. We
summarize our finding and give some lesson learned
for App developers and marketing managers.
and Facebook fan pages. Offline, LINE users Relate
with each other through real-world activities organized
based on shared interests, thus generating social
recognition and a sense of belonging. This study
examined Online and Offline services offered by LINE
and categorized these services into five types of
experiential strategy models based on their different
characteristics (See Table 1).
Table 1. LINE O2O strategic experience model
Experience
Sense
(Aesthetic)
Online
Roles
LINE FRIENDS
characters
Feel
(Entertainment)
Games, Content
Offline
Peripheral
merchandise
Derivative products
based on LINE
FRIENDS characters
Social games
Content
Experiential
activities
LINE Games
Experience House,
Themed Interactive
Exhibits
Think
(Technology)
Multi-screen
services
Smart phone , Tablet
computer, Personal
computer, Television
Technical
innovation
QR codes
Augmented Reality
3D Technical
Act
(Long-term
behavior)
Continuous rollout
of new Apps,
enhancing customer
convenience
Continuing to roll out
new games and
enhance the
convenience of new
services
Cross-industry
applications
embedded in daily
life
TV cartoons and
advertising to
introduce new
services and games.
Department stores,
restaurants, taxis
Relate
(Connections)
Online communities Sense of belonging
Official website, fan
pages and inter-user
communication.
Interaction between
LINE communication,
community services
Linking people with
common hobbies
and interests to
generate a sense of
social ownership
6.1 The power of 厴 (Moe) or “adorableness”
Over the past few years, LINE’s performance has
been impressive in comparison with that of Facebook
and Google. LINE stickers were an immediate success
with users, and emerged as an aspect of Japan’s Moe
(厴̉) culture. Moe is a Japanese slang word and is
also a well-known loan word used in greater China.
The word has come to be used to mean "adorable" or
"cute", mainly as applied to fictional characters [25].
6. Conclusions- Lessons learned
In terms of research contribution, this study
contributes to both theory and practice. From the
theoretical standpoint, this study improves on prior
research effort to understand the virtual and physical
strategies to create customer O2O experiences and
consumer behavior regarding mobile technology.
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This is reflected in one of the original series of
LINE FRIENDS character – Brown and Cony. These
cartoon characters were immediately popular among
young women in Asia. Today, LINE has strong
footholds in Japan, Taiwan and other Asian markets,
and has excellent potential in the Middle East and
Latin America. By using the power of 厴 (Moe), LINE
has pioneered a new way of generating revenue from
customers.
LINE first successfully deployed the concept of 厴
(Moe) in its LINE Stickers products then used to
develop innovative new revenue models. First, rather
than seeking to maximize small B2C payments from
retail users for Stickers, LINE wisely realized that it
would be easier to drive revenue from corporations
through a B2B2C model. The company thus introduced
official LINE accounts for enterprises to attract
customers. These On-Air interactive approaches
provided enterprises with new means of reaching
customers and increasing brand exposure. Second, the
LINE Creator Market allowing users from around the
world to create and sell their own Sticker sets. This
new internet business model gives individual creators
the opportunity to earn global recognition for their
work. Stickers aren’t just cute, but also have strategic
importance and are a source of huge marketing
opportunities and profitability. While China’s WeChat
and Korea’s Kakao Talk Apps have also actively
promoted their own Stickers features, LINE has the
advantages of being the first mover and high
penetration rates, and has maintained its market
dominance.
In addition to operating the community platform,
LINE also is actively developing cross-industry
alliances and branching out into new areas, including
e-commerce services, film and television, and other
cultural and creative industries. For example, to take
advantage of huge opportunities to be had from timesensitive and impulsive mobile shoppers, in 2014 the
company launched LINE MALL and LINE Pay,
suggesting a future showdown between LINE and the
likes of Rakuten and Amazon. Integration of realworld channels and cross-industry partnerships act to
combine the communications software with enterprise
marketing, encouraging more users to converge on the
platform. Disseminating messages and marketing
information across a single, unified platform allows
merchants to leverage Big Data resources and thus
open further opportunities. Its O2O tactics and product
introductions are ways of enlarging the ecosystem and
strengthening the links to its consumers.
6.3 Emerged as a lifestyle phenomena and
created an ecosystem
With the development of mobile internet
communications technology and devices such as smart
phones and tablet computers, mobile applications have
been
developed
to
provide
users
with
anywhere/anytime access to information, entertainment.
The popularity of such Apps has exploded in recent
years, greatly enhancing user convenience and creating
unlimited business opportunities. LINE began by
providing a highly popular mobile instant messaging
App and quickly developed a huge and growing user
base as mobile instant messaging began to rapidly
supplant traditional newsletters and email-based text
transmission services. These Apps have emerged as a
key communications tool for time-sensitive users, and
are likely to drive the next wave of business
opportunities in communications as they become a new
and important marketing medium, evolving in step
with peoples’ online lives.
Today it is no longer sufficient for marketers to
simply emphasize a brand or product quality. Beyond a
simple product or service, customers want to know:
how can this purchase help me achieve my ideal life?
What kind of experience will it give me? How will this
connect me with other people? Will this bring me
happiness? In the “experience economy” brand
marketing is a lifestyle and art, with people cultivating
their taste and lifestyle through their experience of
consuming. Experiential marketing creates interactive
stories between people and businesses. LINE has
successfully created user stickiness through its
communication, gaming and other Apps, engaging the
6.2 Diverse application and Generating buzz
In practice, experiential marketing establishes
relevance with the customer, embedding the brand in
the customer’s mind. Thus, when buying similar items,
the customer will naturally seek out a brand with which
he/she already feels familiar. LINE’s high rates of user
activity are driven by the company’s continually
expanding range of services.
These services further enrich the variety of content
and increase usability, indicating that LINE is
continuously increasing the integration of digital data
and technical resources to enhance its economies of
scale in the App market. New technology serves to
deepen the interactivity of these Apps, thus improving
communication between people and their devices,
among people, and among communities. This
generates effective word of mouth marketing, turning
the customer into the best possible spokesperson for
the company and brand.
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user’s attention and then using real-world activities and
exhibits to creatively enrich the customer’s consuming
context, thus giving the customer a memorable
experience that cannot be achieved in a virtual
environment. In its current form, LINE has developed
from a simple communications tool to take on cultural
significance, exerting a profound impact on the
lifestyles of its users. Today, LINE has strong
footholds in Japan, Taiwan and other Asian markets,
and has excellent potential in the Middle East and
Latin America. It is difficult to categorize LINE as a
simple social networking service (SNS), as it has
emerged as a social phenomena and “lifestyle
platform” in its own right and has created an ecosystem
for its customers to live in. What’s next for LINE?
We’ll have to wait and see.
7. Limitations and directions for future
research
Although our study highlights some new and
interesting results and implications, this study is not
without limitations and questions that warrant future
research. First, the topic researched is LINE, other
social networking services/ Apps such as WeChat and
Facebook could be investigated to extend this work.
Second, although this is one of the first studies to
examine LINE O2O marketing strategies influences on
implicit customers’ experience, it is limited because we
used only a secondary data analysis and few users’
interview data. Future research might address different
kinds of data collection methods to support such
research. Third, we used a convenience interview in
Taiwan. The results of this study cannot be generalized
to different geographic locations. It would be
interesting for future researchers to investigate whether
different cultures may have different value structures
and different behavior patterns.
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