Countdown to 21 October: Jennie × Lotte Department Store, “As I Am”

Lotte Department Store has not had a face in roughly ten years. On 29 September it chose one: Jennie of BLACKPINK, named the store’s brand ambassador under the line As I Am — a nod to an artist who has built her career on doing things her own way, from the solo single “Solo” in 2018 to her first solo album, Ruby, in 2025.

What interests us is the running order. Most launches lead with the film and let the stores catch up. Lotte has done it the other way round: since 1 October Jennie has been in and on every store — from the main branch by Myeongdong to Jamsil in Seoul and Seomyeon in Busan — and across its online channels. The film comes three weeks later, into a city that has already been looking at her face on the way to work. The building is the teaser; the film is the payoff.

13 days to go

• 29.09 — Jennie announced as Lotte Department Store’s brand ambassador.
• 01.10 — The As I Am campaign goes up inside and outside every store, online and offline.
• 08.10 — We start the countdown. Thirteen days.
• 21.10 — The first film premieres on Lotte Department Store’s YouTube channel and social media.
• After that — TV and online ads follow.

What we will be watching for

Whether a department store can say As I Am without it sounding like a sale sign. A fashion house sells one point of view; a department store sells hundreds of brands under one roof, so the line has to be about the shopper, not the shop. If the film lets Jennie be Jennie — and lets the store recede into the room she is standing in — the line holds. If it turns into a walk past the counters, it doesn’t.

We will also be watching the afterlife: the 9:16 cuts, how the film travels back into the stores that trailed it, and whether three weeks of posters made the premiere an event or used it up in advance. The film goes into the library on 21 October, with full credits once they are published.