Hot on the heels of Carrot Market (aka Daangun Market aka 당근마켓) showing the locations of local street vendors selling Bungeoppang (붕어빵), here's a cute idea to warm your heart and accessorize your phone.
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| Bungeoppang shaped NFC keyring dongle. Image: NPS Instagram |
No Plastic Sunday which apparently creates artistic reuses of recycled plastics has released a cute Bungeoppang shaped NFC keyring dongle (붕어빵 키링이) made of recycled plastic. When you tap it against the back of your phone, the NFC chip inside the fish activates the "$3 Happiness" app in your phone, immediately opening it to a list of local Bungeoppang street vendors. Got a craving? Grab the fish, tap it, and you're ready to find some hot sweet soft fish bread.
I'd never even heard about this, but apparently there is a crowd-sourced app called "Three Dollar Happiness" or more literally "Three Dollars in your Heart" (가슴속3천원) for finding local street vendors whose seasonal foods are usually, you guessed it, priced at $3. I saw two fish breads the other day near me for 3,000 won so the name checks out.
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| Map location feature on "$3 Happiness" app |
I have to admit the fish itself is adorable and the packaging is top notch. They have some creative types working over there for sure. The design and marketing is a good idea and could really help revitalize some of these street vendors who probably suffer for lack of impulse buys now that so few people carry cash around. I know I've paid before by sitting there tapping their bank account info into my phone for a transfer. It's a shame they have to scribble their bank account on a piece of cardboard and stick it up for cashless people. Hopefully this sort of app could help promote more customers until we finally get a more simple unified tap-to-pay across consumer devices.
That being said, I can't imagine this fish product is practical. Do you need to tap the fish just to open an app? Maybe if tapping made the phone turn into a fish that flew around guiding you, then it would be neat. But on the other hand maybe just having the fish on your bag zipper or something is enough to remind you "oh yeah I should grab some fish bread." In that sense it works and the NFC thing is just a gimmick. But it's a gimmick that got me to write a post about it so I guess that worked too.
Now I'm going to go pick up some fish bread. Now that winter is here and it's cold out I prefer all red bean. Tastes warmer and more filling.
Happy tapping.
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