Source: Kay@wgjjang + Xsportsnews
Credit: Spectacle! Forums



Wonder Girls Boost “FreeStyle” Popularity

The Wonder Girls are drawing huge interest to JCE Entertainment’s popular online basketball game “FreeStyle” through advertisements and special events. On Dec. 29, the number of players increased by double with the release of special Wonder Girls characters.

Recently, JCE Entertainment picked the five-member girl group of “So Hot” and “Nobody fame to represent their “FreeStyle” street basketball game. In December, they released a series of CFs featuring each of the girls assuming a basketball position. Also, they have rolled out a series of wallpapers, screensavers, and emoticons for the public to download off their website.

Using the Wonder Girls’ popularity to boost its own, the online game company has also started a series of events to encourage membership and character sales. By entering into the contests (i.e. recruit friends, purchase characters, movie making, etc.), members have a chance to win Wonder Girls’ treasures, autographed CDs, posters, calendars, and more.

“If you compare it on a large scale to last October when we were preparing for this update, the number of online players rose by around 60%,” said a JCE Entertainment representative.

All the increase in membership sales are being credited to the Wonder Girls by analysts. The “cute” style of the marketing that focuses on each member plus the high rollout of multimedia by the online website were part of a rather brilliant marketing strategy by the company.

The newly-released characters of YeEun, SunMi, and SoHee resulted in a two-fold increase of connected online players on Dec. 29. The characters have personal introduction pages along with a closet of clothes featuring a “Tell Me”, “So Hot”, and basketball uniform (the “Nobody” version will be released soon). SunYe and YooBin are still under the heading “Coming Soon” at the moment.

Each character costs around 20,000 won (roughly around $15). As of Jan. 13, the SoHee character was leading in sales (40%), followed by YeEun (31%), and then SunMi (29%).