According to a report by FashionBizJune 24th, the South Korean brand incubation company Open Run Project recently announced that it has officially obtained the IP authorization of the well-known e-cigarette brand Ignite in the South Korean region. This move marks that Ignite will officially enter the South Korean market in the second half of 2024 and plans to use convenience stores as the main distribution channel to capture local consumers.
Ignite was founded by the American social media celebrity Dan Bilzerian in 2017. In the early stage of the brand, it quickly entered the market with its unique “playboy” luxurious image, and its product line covers multiple fields such as e-cigarettes, alcohol, clothing, cosmetics, etc. Its e-cigarette products have established a certain brand recognition and sales foundation in overseas markets thanks to their outstanding packaging design and unique lifestyle marketing strategies.
According to Open Run, Ignite e-cigarettes will be positioned as “high-end e-cigarettes” in the South Korean market this time and are expected to enter approximately 5,000 convenience stores in the first batch. Before its official launch, Open Run had conducted a small-scale pre-sale test on the South Korean e-commerce platform Coupang, successfully selling out approximately 25,000 products and receiving a warm market response. In addition to e-cigarettes, Open Run also plans to expand its Gymwear product line under the Ignite brand and is currently in the early preparation stage.
It is introduced that Open Run Project has mainly focused on the incubation of clothing brands in the past, and it operates several well-known brands including Drawfit and Odd Studio. In 2023, the company’s annual revenue reached as high as 88.6 billion won (approximately 63.79 million US dollars), and its net profit was 12.1 billion won (approximately 87.12 million US dollars). Nowadays, Open Run is actively attempting to expand its non-clothing business lines by introducing international ips, and Ignite is an important step towards diversification for it. It is worth noting that by the end of 2023, the company had been acquired by the Japanese platform “nugu” and MediQuarters.