PayPay $100m campaign

PayPay is a joint venture of Softbank and Yahoo Japan created in June 2018. It is another cashless payment system. But what seems different is they've launched with a very aggressive marketing campaign in Japan.

Total budget for the campaign is 100億円 (億 = 10^8 / ~90m USD). They are giving ¥500 (~$5) to signup. Then 20% of the value of purchasers back in points. Then for customers of some Softbank/Yahoo services they are offering 1 in 10 chance of 100% points back. That effectively gives you an expected points of 30%.

A lot of the major stores are accepting PayPay and the store's own points campaigns are still valid.

Lots of consumers seem pretty excited https://placeuveneverbeen.co/paypay-macbook/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUKsTwg716M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mC26FFNb_Y

It seems like a good way for Softbank to burn a lot of cash and spend a high price on customer acquisition. I am not sure how sticky people will be to the service once campaign ends.