The IHT reports that Korea desperately needs a “brand” to boost its national image:
New Zealand is “100% pure,” Malaysia is “Truly Asia,” Thailand is “Amazing,” and Hong Kong is “Asia’s World City.”
Showcased on Discovery Channel commercials, billboards at international airports, flash graphics on Web sites and even the lapel pins of government officials, the symbols and logos of “country brands” are becoming an increasingly important component of Asia-Pacific nations’ strategies to define, communicate and market themselves to potential partners, tourists and investors globally.
Marketing professionals, however, say South Korea, despite its experience as host to world-class sporting events and its leading-edge companies, is a case study in how difficult it can be to attach a successful brand to a country.
Along with negative perceptions of labor strife and nuclear threats, South Korea is overshadowed on the one hand by Japan and China and on the other by regional competitors with savvier marketing.
“We have to differentiate ourselves from China and Japan,” said Choi Jung Wha, the president of the Corea Image Communication Institute, who conducted 15 months of research on South Korea’s image.
Read the rest on your own. I’m not big into the whole “country brand” thing — the Corsair and Oranckay (1, 2) have discussed previous attempts at sloganeering. If you got suggestions, however, I’d be more than happy to read them. Heck, if I’m feeling bored, I might even include them in an email to the Ministry of Culture.
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What ever happened to, “The Hermit Kingdom”?
When I first read the title I saw country band as in country & western… I was ready to run in horror…
What happened to “The HUB of Asia”????????
Korea’s problem with its branding stems, at least in part, from a systemic inability to tolerate the role of foreigners in interpreting Korea to other foreigners. That’s how we get things like “Hi Seoul”.
There is a great, honest post on that organisation’s web site which will be ignored by the people who would benefit most from it because it tramples on their sacred national pride.
Unfortunately as usual the solution will be to deny a problem’s existence rather than find a solution.
http://www.coreaimage.org/boar.....amp;idx=18
The Overall Image
Largely perceived to be a nation of hard working, robotic peoples that have neither the inclination nor the desire to share. In sharing the meaning would translate to anything from their own technological innovation, to a simple laughter or a more personal side of life. The country is not perceived to be business friendly as rules are principally published in the local language, are cumbersome and yet fragmented. While the country has somewhat of a reputation of producing better products today than say 20 years ago, those products are often being described as ?€œalmost?€? Here, this almost has the meaning of ?€œalmost right?€? ?€œ almost working?€? ?€œalmost delivered?€?.
When further addressing business practices, the general perception, as well as experience by many, has been that most Korean business people are cunning, not necessarily honest and largely try to create a business environment that thrives on a ?€œme first?€? attitude. From experience I can say that few deals, if any, had ever been presented with a win-win position for both parties. Largely, the opportunities that have presented themselves had been difficult at best to execute in a fair and equitable manner. Equally so, Korean business more often than not takes clear advantage of the lack of cultural and business understanding of their partners and thus does not create an atmosphere of trust and cohesion.
In overall terms, it appears that the international community does do business with Korea for largely a singular purpose ?€“ value proposition. Clearly, the value proposition is one of ?€œgetting what you pay for?€?. This often means and inferior product but a great price while at other times it may mean an inexpensive products that very few people or countries make.
The Cultural Aspect
Whilst my observation above may appear harsh, I do believe that there are many cultural reasons for Koreans to be the way they are. Having been to a museum in Seoul, I observed a Western couple admiring a piece of art works when a group of Korean tourist wished to view the same piece. The group simply pushed aside the couple, made their way to the art piece, admired it, spoke loudly while pushing and shoving each other. The couple, not being familiar with the culture was clearly not happy. The moral of the story, or the observation here, is simply that it is a matter of upbringing in a tightly knit culture. It appear that if people do not know each other they tend to ?€œhandle?€? each other much more roughly than when they do know each other. When observing people that know each other, how people greet each other, the un-indoctrinated often believes that Korean people are ?€œfriendly?€? when in-fact they are merely ?€œpolite?€? to each other.
The New Generation
Having been harsh and observant, we do not want to forget the turning point that Korea is now under going-that of the new generation. Observations have shown me on a recent trip to Gu-Mi where I visited Gum Ho Mountain, that the younger generation appears to be more ?€œpublicly family oriented?€? than the last generation. Younger people seem to smile more, seem closer to each other and make a strong effort to ?€œcommunicate?€? with both each other and others. This change will be important for the future as it is this change in attitude that will contribute to the change in perception and change in image as Korea and Koreans are perceived.
The Image Change
Clearly the most important question of all. Whilst your survey will clearly provide you with ?€œsome?€? input, I do not believe that the fundamentals are being addressed adequately. To change the image of a nation, I may cite the Singapore example her. When Mr. Lee Quan Yew took over the country in 1966, Singapore was a heaven for smugglers, criminals, sailors and adventurers and had many cultural and economic problems. Mr. Lee started to clean up the small country, brought in law and order and insisted on education, both academics and CULTURAL. While Korea is certainly no comparison and much further advance that Singapore was in 1966, the CULTURAL and communications education has lacked seriously behind in Korea. The basic Korean, the citizen that creates and transmits the IMAGE OF THE COUNTRY, cannot, or will not communicate the desired image, whatever it may be that Korea would like to project. This can clearly have a number of reasons, one of which could be that the basic Korean does not know what that image is or what the desired image is to be, or in tune with his outlook, simply does not care as it does not concern him anyway. He thus simply continues to focus on himself, his family and his friends and not others.
From observations and experience gained in nearly 20 years of doing business in Korea, the basic Korean can not articulate what Korea should be IN THE EYES OF THE REST OF THE WORLD, but can only show and express his pride of being a Korean. While this is certainly admirable, it does not help in the creation of a positive image nor does it help in reinforcing a positive image of the country.
If we examine images of other countries, certain key elements come to mind as follows:
Italy Elegant clothing, Ferrari, Italian Food,
Friendly and loud speaking people
France Elegant people, fine wine, historic building of Paris
America The worlds policeman, wide open spaces, gold lying
on the street
Hong Kong A bustling city, everything is cheep, great Cantonese
food, bad taxi drivers
Australia Laid back people, a bit lazy, difficult to get to, wide
open spaces
Thailand Great art and culture, the Thai smile, spicy food
Germany Hard working people, great cars, excellent products
While we can go on and on and on, rarely does the image involve a way to do business or the easy by which business is done but mostly involves the perception of a country that is created by the PEOPLE of the country ABOUT the country.
The answer how to fix it
Education, Time, and Patience
“Branding” is a really sore spot for me. There are real problems with how any advertising is managed, especially within chaebol. One good example is Samsung. The marketing and design for each part of Samsung is run by different people, most of which have no experience in advertising, “branding”-related issues or even an eye or sense of what is appropriate. Here is one case example from my files. I worked on advertising for a branch of Samsung and we had ten different people on a Samsung “team” giving conflicting opinions on the layout for an ad that would be in several European magazines. We even had one objection to the use of a girl in one version where the girl was obviously Hispanic but one fellow insisted that she was black and that “he knew what black people looked like” since he had been to America before. The girl became white and blond. Even after having finally gotten approval for one design approach after much “team” wrangling, they proceeded to bombard us with wave after wave after wave of revisions — add this phone number, take this phone number out, etc. Needless to say, they did not expect to pay us for the extra time in going through this endless wave of revisions and my Korean boss dared not say anything about it, though he was getting screwed.
Considering this [one] example, which is a pretty good example of the overall state of how advertising and branding is handled in Korea, it is little wonder that Korea ends up with lame, slogan-driven drivel like “Hi Seoul” or “Samsung Digit-all”. There are good, talented people here that could do a better job, it is just that they are never allowed to do their job with out the endless interference of flacks and stooges whose idea of advertising is a truck with a loudspeaker.
“Dynamic Korea” leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s still an improvement from “Korea to the World, the World to Korea.”
I think Mr. Michael Breen has talked (though in English) about Korea and brand image for years.
While I agree with much of the excellent analysis by the link site provided by “dkapflzks”, I disagree that “education, time and patience” will change the world’s perception of South Korea.
South Korea is sandwitched between China and Japan, too small and not large enough to avoid being overshadowed by a much larger China, and richer Japan. “Education, time, and patience” will not change that simple fact.
Culture of rudeness? Yes, I suppose that’s a drag on the image of Korea, but that certainly doesn’t seem to drag down the image of China - where people are even more ruder. What about the French? They’re not exactly known as kindly friendly people to the foreigners. It seems to me being rude and unfriendly is a non-factor when it comes to forming positive images of a nation.
Does Korea need someone like Lee Kwan Yew? In one way, I suppose. But we mustn’t forget Lee Kwan Yew was an authoritarian dictator that ruled a geographically small city state of 4 million people with a tight fist. He also didn’t have to worry about a massive rural population flocking into the cities. South Korea has gone far past that time when one person can micro-manage a big country, let alone a country of 50 million people. If South Korea wants to emulate Singapore, and put a strong man into power, some of the democratic institutions will have to be rolled back, freedoms curtailed, chewing gums outlawed, and have the multi-party system outlawed. In other words, does it make sense for South Korea to go back to the 1970’s Park Chung Hee era? I don’t think that will work. The Singapore style example although very popular with expats, is no longer suitable to Korea.
Let’s face it, no matter what South Korea does, nothing will change. Because Korea is Korea. It’s best for Korea to just stop worrying about what others think about Korea. Just concentrate on fixing the problems of the country, make Korea a better place to live, and accept whatever comes after - and who cares what others outside of Korea think? Improvement of international image can only happen when it comes from within.
A fundamental problem is that advertising is a service business. And as those of us who live in Korea know, the very word “service” has been co-opted to mean “free.” This is a fundamental problem for those of us in a service business — Korean enterprises do not budget for services and do not value the time of the people who render services.
can anyone tell me what ‘amazing’ thailand has gotten from being
amazing? not much i’d say. anyhoo, here how i would describe korea:
s korea- dirty, alive, aggresive, tech saavy, groovy pop culture, stinky
but tasty food.
Kimbob–utterly spot on. The problem with Korea’s image is that Koreans care too much about how they measure up, esp. against Japan and the US. This can be a very pleasant country to visit with basic attention paid to raising quality of life for its citizens, not tourists or businessmen. The rest will follow.
I think I should add my two cents since I have had some experince in the advertising market like a previous poster.
As far as the Korean Ad industry goes I can echo some of the comments in my experinces with the Chaebols. I died laughing at the “I know what black people look like!” comment, it reminded me of so much of my time in the business. A major problem is that the Korean Ad industry carries the Korean management system. A system not well suited for creative work either by groups or single people. To distill the problem, I reminded of a joke about whats on MTV is “What a 40 year old thinks is cool”.
(As an aside, I as I recall hearing the “Digit-all” slogan and logo was developed by Foote Cone. Since then though most of the ads have been done in-house through Cheil)
Frankly I thought that Salamon’s article was disapointed, because to me he did not touch on one of the biggest problems noted by expats here. KNTO, or whoever is in charge, has a HORRIBLE management when it comes to ad buying and budget managemetn. How often have us forgieners seent the multitued of “Visit Korea” ads not only in Korea but IN KOREAN! What use are these ads? Even worse, once I remeber seeing and ad for the Korean Travel Card (a debit card (once?) sold to tourists) in the Korean Herald. Good placement but the ad was in Korean? What is the point of wasting money like that if you refuse to go after your market?
(A second aside, even funnier, was the whole campaign was done by a FORGIEN OWNED agency! The traffic department should have been drug out into the street and shot for that mistake alone!)
Oh one last thing, and an admendment to Brendon’s comments on how Koreans value “service” companies.
I would estimate about 20-40% (maybe even higher) of all Korean ad spending or fees paid to Ad agencies involove dirty money of some type. This goes for a good portion of the Ad buys in Korea. A common newspaper tatic in lean times is to blackmail companies for real or imagined transgressions in exhange for running full page ads in their papers. Ergo why us forgieners see full page Korean language ads on the back of our English papers.
Also as well since valuing services are tough, the Ad agency is where a good part of the kickbacks and bribes are laundered. It was not a coincince that LG Ad was investgated in the political bribery scandals last year. It is also a good place to weave financal transactions to prop of failing units.
Since I am in another service industry, I do wonder if the same monkey business goes one between the Chaebol boys in the legal profession as well. Any thoughts Brendon?
I like “Timeless Korea” myself. It may be hokey, but it’s nice to believe that somewhere up above the hubub and bustle of modern Korean life, a monk is chanting, and the sound of a water’s drop can still be heard in the recesses of the meditation hall.
Sorry, just had to throw a stone of my own.
Drambuie man,
I have no idea — we don’t play in that game. Our office works primarily for big foreign companies (admittedly, usually handling their smaller problems) or smaller Korean companies needing good service in English. That would be joint venture agreements, primarily. We also do a lot of civil litigation but most of that is insurance subrogation-related work — i.e. when your warehouse burns down and the insurance company pays the claim, the insurance company then becomes a plaintiff against whoever was responsible for burning the warehouse down (usually negligence). We’re their lawyers. We’ve never had anyone coming in asking us for help in a shakedown. Similarly, we’ve never been asked to launder funds through fake fees. Frankly that would be pretty surprising, since the fees have 10% value added tax and then we would have to pay income tax on it as well. Seems pretty inefficient to me.
Don’t be so cynical. Yes, Korea is awfully corrupt, more than it should be — but ask Eliot Spitzer (my hero!) about how much corruption he finds in America. It’s human nature to be corrupt and corruptible. What Korea lacks (for now, at least — we’re getting there) is strong and independent institutions competing with each other. Securities and Exchange Commission not doing its damn job? Here comes the New York State Attorney General, and God bless him for it…
If I might add a couple of comments. My impression is that “Hi Seoul” and all other English slogan campaigns are done with Koreans as the target audience, not foreigners. As such, they are probably quite effective: “Look yobo, our taxpayer won seem to be put to good use. Isn’t ‘Hi Seoul’ a cute slogan?” The Universiade was all about Korea, especially the brothers up north, not about improving the international image. They really don’t care.
The Seoul Air Show is another case in point. It’s begging for a professional Western show management company to make it the #1 show in Asia, but they won’t even accept help in cleaning up their atrocious English web pages. Look for the struggling Singapore Air Show to maintain regional dominance by default.
this whole ‘korea needs a brand image’ thing is really just about what
the west thinks. i’d advise koreans not to care as long as westerners
lap up korean products which they seem to do enthusiastically. it’s not true
that hosting events like the world cup doesn’t produce benefits; the
world cup did spark the mass interest in korea you now see in japan, didn’t it?
it seems all over asia all things korean are hot which kind of
contradicts what this ‘report’ says about korea’s image abroad unless you’re
talking about westerners.
koreans should take a good look at western expats in korea and ask themselves
whether such people are really worth the effort. hint: nope.
You know, I actually agree with the gist of your argument, Nulji, or to be more precise, the comments made by the analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute which basically said “brand” or image is not nearly as important as basic macro-economic conditions.
I’ll ignore the end part, however.
i don’t find you a typical expat, mr marmot. you remind me a lot of
that guy who wrote hungboga’s gourd. you know much about korea and seem
to like the place though sometimes your politics drive me crazy. too bad
there aren’t more expats like you because the whole image of
the expat community there in the land of the yemaek would improve tremendously.
peace, mr marmot.
I also actually agree partially with Nulji on this regard. Take away bad image of korea in the West, Korea actually has pretty good image in Asia - at least more positive than the negative.
But like I said before who cares, and why spend so much time, money and energy on what others think.
How about making Korea into a country with a good business climate, and worry about catchy slogans later?
As long as Korean-owned businesses around the world continue to be infamous for running factories that have among the worst sweatshop labor conditions (notably in China, and soon in North Korea) and they dont make the actual origins of products clear on labels, a ‘Made In Korea’ label poses more questions than it answers.. to me at least.
Better to buy products from countries that don’t break local laws by heartlessly exploiting their workers!
This is even a growing, serious problem here in the US…
Brendon> First, I appologize. I never intended my remarks to be infered as an attack on your firm. Nor the firm I work with.
Rather I wonded on the margins how much goes on in the profession here since it is a pure service industry. Furthermore how much goes on with the “big boys”. As noted, my experince in the Ad business here got me pondering the issue.
As for the sales tax, yes we all know how scruplous Korean companies are in posting taxable sales and paying said tax.
Frankly both of us are small frys, and moreover both of us have a large percentage of forgien business and accordinly do not have to put up with less of such.
No doubt corruption is in the US, and I agree with you on Spitzer.
A&A> Yes I know its amazing, but yes DigitAll was a Madison avenue import. This brings me to something else I did not specifical mention.
Another one of the problems that fall under “Korean Management” is that (as Brendon alluded to) the clients are more forceful with their own opinions. When I was working in the biz I had numerous tiffs with the end client over what was correct, and what was not correct. Part of the problem is that the senior executives in charge are unwilling to belive the judgement of those below them, or expert. To make problems even worse is the Korean climate of deference to seniors which is obvously the client’s senior exec. As a result you get 50+ year old ajoshi’s picking global campagins based on the fact they spent two weeks in Koreatown in LA in the 1970’s.
To get back to Samsung, when “DigitAll, Everyones Invited” was selected 5-6 years ago as the global slogan, they probaly got 4-5 firms to give 4-5 slogans each. Out of thes 16-25 slogans it was the senior Samsung Execs that picked “DigitAll”. There were probaly others (many others) that we would have picked that were better, but are not the 50+ ajoshis who spent those two weeks in 1978 are we?
Which gets me to another big problems Korean firms have in advertising. Whether due to cost issues or, cultual chauvinism, Korean companies do not do demographic and consumer research. I once propsed a small focus group to solve an issue one of my clients had. The offical reason was that it was too expensive and too much hassle. However, on the side I was told it was not a good idea since the group (the possible target customers) may give a reaction that was diffrent from what the company was expecting. That would be unacceptable since it would “embarass” the marekting execs at the company. Short awnser, the problem Korean adveristing would be perfect as long as they cut out the consumer.
(Or to take another tact, the “DigitAll” proposers were willing to give a 10% kick back to the Samsung Exec if they chose the firm. Ergo that was the best global slogan)
Yes, I know I am over simplfing the situtation. There are alot more factors involved. However we should really blame those who made the ultimate decisions, the senior execs. Accordingly you want to blame somebody for “Hi Seoul” or other displays of stupidity, blame the man responsible, not Korea.
Nulji, Marmot, Chris> I agree with all three of you that the best way for Korea to improve its image is to improve the country. One of the more regretable side effects of the sucess of the modren Ad campaign is common perception that a snappy slogan will magicaly hide the flaws of the product.
I ask you all to think of the G-7 countries, USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada (?). All of them are favored tourist destinations for many. I am sure they have branding campagins. But can you name them off the top of your head?
I’ve always found that when I go back to Canada, people’s image of Korea is somehow confused with Vietnam. I’m asked about life in the jungle, barefoot villagers in the rice paddies, etc. People are amused for a second when I tell them Korea is much more like Japan, and then they change the subject to something they really want to talk about.
My take is that the average Korean does not care if Westerners know the true beauty and depth of this traditional culture, simply because the average Korean himself has no knowledge of the same, his/her personal culture being a relentless two-fisted howl of greed and hedonism. Non-Koreans should show the obeisance of the inferior: that is all that is wanted from foreign visitors.
To all of you involved in advertising in Korea, my hat’s off. While a lot of asian advertising is just more of the turgid rah-rah-rah stuff one sees everywhere (probably matches the budget), I have seen some really great asian commercials that capture a moment and leave some image or tune you’ve never seen or heard before rolling around in your head. Some have had a uniquely Asian look or feel, while others have blended asian and western elements. The current “circle unbroken” auto add is a first class example, as was one in Taiwan a while back that consisted of nothing more than an attractive girl in a dark room singing a few lines of a haunting melody. Anyway, from an old soldier to those of you slaving away in the business, who have artistic visions and ideals you are still striving to make reality, I look forward to seeing your efforts. Keep the faith!
First, I appologize. I never intended my remarks to be infered as an attack on your firm. Nor the firm I work with.
No need to apologize. I didn’t recognize any attack anyway.
What’s wrong with Samsung’s “DigitAll, everyone’s invited”? I think it’s a catchy tune. And last time I looked, Samsung’s doing very well, with the most rewards for designs than any other company in the world, and the most profitable too. Businessweek even names them as a role model for China. If you want to criticize Korean companies, it looks like it’s a wrong company to pick on. Because whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it right. Maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t listen to any of you big shots in the advertizing business.
And let’s not escape the fact that no amount of brand imaging can override Samsung’s disability of:
Samsung = Korea = cheap immitation low quality products from exploited jungled bare footed villagers working in the rice paddies. - in the minds of an average western consumer.
Kimbob, your last post (Samsung = Korea) suggests something like this for a country brand:
“Digi-Y’ALL know Samsung’s Korean!” (with a big dumb smiley-face on it)
I would agree with those who think Korea can get along just fine without branding itself. But I’d also say that if Korea feels it has to have a brand for…I dunno, ?²´??´’s sake, well then who am I (or nulji maripkan) to tell Korea otherwise?
BTW, nulji, I don’t know who’s been rattling your cage, but are you looking to engage in an open discussion, or just air your angry rants about western people living in Korea? Seriously.
Oh yeah, it was Gary Rector who wrote “Hungbo’s Gourd” for the Korea Herald.
they already are branded “the irish of asia”
it’s intersting that not many of you react to statements like
‘koreans are greedy and hedonistic’ but will react to anything i write about
y’all. now, why is that?
Because we need to give you something to masturbate to, nulji. This is the internet after all. We’re just helping a brother out.
They say Yo?ido is Seoul’s Wall Street and lower Manhattan, Apkuj??ng is Seoul’s Rue St Honor??, etc etc. Alright. I have a question.
What is P’ohang, then?
Easy. Pittsburg.
Samsung = Korea = cheap immitation low quality products from exploited jungled bare footed villagers working in the rice paddies. - in the minds of an average western consumer
That’s not what Samsung’s brand image is at all. Samsung Electronics has taken the world by storm and changed its brand image — from “solid, dependable and poorly-designed stuff you buy because you can’t afford Japanese” to “world leader in innovation.” They did it on the back of mild innovation (Samsung is still essentially a follower) and terrific design and marketing. Don’t sell them short.
The Korean electronics brands that still have the “cheap imitation low quality products” odor are Goldstar — which is why LG dumped that name in favor of LG, and why it bought the Zenith brand out of bankruptcy — and Daewoo.
In my opinion LG is on the Samsung track, as LG’s product quality and innovation have improved dramatically, but LG probably is doomed to be in the position of “JVC” to Samsung’s “Sony”. But Daewoo probably has too big a job to do to overcome its current brand value, and ought simply to abandon that name and start over.
As per kimbob’s comments: “Samsung = Korea = cheap immitation low quality products from exploited jungled bare footed villagers working in the rice paddies. - in the minds of an average western consumer”,
This could be alleviated through better professionalism in management in establishing a unified advertising campaign that was centralized and free of the interference of those that have no concept of marketing, branding design and communication. This misuse and abuse of modern channels of communication is a manifestation of this problem and is not the problem itself.
“Basic macro-economic conditions” will not improve so long as unprofessional and irrational models of management and communication are used. Speaking as one that works with different international partners and understands how design is one tool of communication, one can give a monkey a cell-phone and teach it how to make calls but that is not the advent of evolution in the species or “innovation”, it is simply a new device to amuse the beast.
i see i joined this conversation a little late. anyway, there’s so much i want to say about “branding” korea. i’ve gotten into many debates at work about this. i’m not going to say too much as i don’t want to get fired, but i agree with whoever it was who said these slogans are being geared toward koreans and not foreigners. that is exactly what is happening. this is an on-going argument i have at work as we are starting to advertise internationally. my western opinions when it comes to advertisements are always outvoted by my korean colleagues. whenever we consider putting a new ad out into one of the major international publications, we have a little office vote. i’m the only non-korean. i always lose. i’m sure that’s how we got things like “hi seoul” and “dynamic busan” as well as “pleasure island, treasure island” for jeju. i had just started working at my present job right after “dyanamic busan” came out. when i was at busan city hall during my first week here, i was asked my opinion about the new “dynamic busan” logo. (and i see they are now saying on their CNN ads, “jump busan” what the ….?) i grimmaced. it had already been unveiled so it was a little too late for my honest opinion. oh well!
“it?€™s intersting that not many of you react to statements like
?€?koreans are greedy and hedonistic?€™ but will react to anything i write about
y?€™all. now, why is that? ”
Perhaps because they actually LIVE here and you don’t, nulji?
Interesting article on the BBC about working conditions in Chinese factories in general and a Chinese toy factory (run by Koreans) in particular.
Now, some might debate me about whether this kind of thing hurts the image of Korea abroad, but I have heard this same story, Chinese factories, Korean owners, sweatshops, stonewalling, injuries, deaths, again and again, and I think that its a scandal.
I am getting the impression that Korean-owned factories in China often have serious problems - much more than China’s average. (which is not very good..but slowly improving, I suspect, as average wages rise.)
But the stories coming out of these places are horrifying..
If thats true, no amount of money spent on PR will obscure the real issue.. that of massive greed causing deaths and ruined lives..
Profits are NOT more important than human lives…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/pro.....139401.stm
Freqent V> As I noted, I can sympathise with you. What if find even funnier is a little bit of knowelege can be very dangerous in this area.
I work off and on doing ad work for one of the chaebols (it sounds more impressive than it is). Somewhere in the 90’s they commisioned a NY firm to give a report on their brand image. One thing they took to heart (maybe the only) from the report was to focus on certian sporting events.
Now every directive I get from them is to make the ad more “sporty” no matter how far away they get from the actual product. This can lead to some rather akward juxitipoitions. The funnier thing in a way is all the “hate” mail they get from their forgien offices (staffed by natives) basicaly asking “WHAT THE HELL??? WHO WROTE THIS???” Apparently this is my fault since I wrote it, not becuse they insist on putting things in that are totaly inapropreate.
News flash: Today’s IHT. Two Korean businessmen arrested in Brazil for… slavery. Yes, slavery. Some kind of chained sweatshop operation bad enough for even the lax police of Brazil to crack down on. How’s that for branding Korea?
It must be a lie. The pure victims of Korea are to blame for nothing.
Frequent visitor: Heh. I’m glad you mentioned the CNN advert that has the tagline, “Discover a pleasure island full of treasure: Invest Jeju.” It’s a confused/ confusing piece of copy that, accompanied by some really nice footage of late-Neolithic stone monuments , beaches and smiling locals definately leaves some questions unanswered.
In so many cases I tend to just give the benefit of the doubt to the good intentions of the marketing department and the final result to people who have no busniess throwing in their two cents, or copy revisions as the case may be. That’s not really a Korea-specific managerial problem, though. From the conceptual, creative, production end of things (which I’m familiar with from work I did back Stateside) every step of the way is usually a Hurculean effort to prevent the entire project from, well, being a “pleasure island full of treasure.”
For every horrific piece of advertising there are always several decent ones out there. I’m particularly fond of some of the Home Theater television pieces. And there’s that classic one with the models who fall through the guy’s ceiling when he prods it with the hat-rack. Eventually, I believe, something will be produced that’s better than ‘marginal’ and it will make it through. In the meantime, don’t forget to have a Rice Day.
Why Konglish Should Be Banned
Today I sat in on a 2 hour meeting in which we heard and evaluated proposals from local marketing companies who are vying for a contract to be our sole slogan and logo creator.
Some of the presentations were hilarious.
One group lectured us o…
the chaebol minions should look to the world of underground hip-hop for deliverance in
representin’ the southside chosun nation.
i’m tired of the ajuma and ajussi’s corny, arirang oldie gayo shit.
what i need to see is some old fart spittin rhyme with
kyungsannamdo saatori twang.
like in a slick rap video with a dope beat droppin bombs of a most senior,
conservative, bald headed, ajussi-lookin chaebol mutherfuker with a huge-ass square,
black rimmed, kim jong il style glasses planted on his face, with a massive gold chain
of an earth, wind, and fire eagle icon hung around his neck and a sparklin set of gold
teeth, wearing a tight dark suit, tie, and the company hat worn backwards with the logo
showin, with a big-ass sparklin name belt buckle that spells out HONORARY CHIEF da BIZ
PIMP KIM facing his crew all stiff-like for the company anthem, then the brightness dims,
club lights twirlin’, the speakers be pumpin, the worker bee drones be breaking loose from
the ice bouncing with mad flow, hot ladies be making that ass twurk, and the chairman be
rockin the mike about Big Plans Worldwide Distribution, whare my ulsan dawgs at? whare my
kyungsan dawgs at? whare my taejon dawgs at? whare my suwon dawgs? whare my inchon dawgs at?
da Chairman’s in da house…ah so…yah gae-sheki dool ra, make some mutherfukin noise! the
panoramic pans through a vision of a multitude of robot arms welding shiny steel skeletons
in choreographic synchrony with sparks flying, workers polishing pimp whips to a spit shine
as they be rolling off da line, a fleet of big-ass massive container ships spreading across
the globe, cut to a scene of a showroom with mad pimp whips with a bunch of lovely posing
honeys in tight skimpy outfits caressin the curves, the chairman be lookin mighty pimp
himself, strutting onto da floor flanked by two fine-ass honeys, one on each arm, plump
cuban cigar clenched between teeth, swigging a bottle of hennity xo, reaches down and grabs
them honeys asses saying ‘who’s your daddy?’, all paternalistic and shit. ‘Fifty mutherfukin
years ago, i didnt even have a can to piss in. look at me now, not bad for a dirt-poor
sangnomae-sheki from the shi-gool. now all you punk-ass bitches out there, talkin shit, yeah
all you motherfuckers out there who be fuckin with the motherland, that’s right, uh-huh, let
me show you some mi-guk shit that i picked up over there, do ya understand this?
ma little friend
To nulji maripkan:
“it?€™s intersting that not many of you react to statements like ?€?koreans are greedy and hedonistic?€™ but will react to anything i write about
y?€™all. now, why is that?”
It’s because they are so blinded by their hatred of Korea that they refuse to acknowledge any good aspects about it. It’s ironic that the foreigners that get the best treatment in Korea (ie. Westerners) are the loudest in complaining whereas the foreign workers tend to be very respectful of Korea even when they get treated the worst. These expats that you talk about think they know everything about Korea when they don’t know squat. They think that knowing a few Korean acquaintances gives them insight into all of Korean society. Their understanding is shallow at best. They don’t have the depth or wisdom to discern the truths about Korea. All they do is watch from a distance in their expat ghettos complaining about how differently things are done in Korea. They use their own countries as the standard of judgement when those countries have serious problems themselves. Their just not willing to take the time and effort to understand the workings of Korean society. All they do is complain and degrade Korean people. Yet, when they need help, they do not hesitate for a moment to take in the hospitality of Koreans. They do not hesitate to accept discounts or freebies from Koreans especially given to foreigners. If they were truly cultured people, they would make an attempt to adapt to the culture on some level. No, all they want is a Western country with Asian faces. So the issue is not Korea, but the attitude of those expats.
quote “It?€™s ironic that the foreigners that get the best treatment in Korea (ie. Westerners) are the loudest in complaining whereas the foreign workers tend to be very respectful of Korea even when they get treated the worst.” end of quote
Almost agree. But you know, two weeks ago we had a dinner with a group of Russian (really, ex-Soviet, I think I was the only ‘Russian’ there in technical sense) workers, and one of them, a woman, a jorunalist-turn-worker-turn-businessperson who has spent six years in Korea, said: “For every one bad story of mistreatment, beatings cheatng etc, there are five good stories of success or at least of normal and enjoyanble life here. These good stories simply remain unreported.” It seems to be true, from my experience.
?€œKonglish?€? Gives Korean Businesses a Bad Name
Misused English words make effective corporate slogans in Korea, but they don?€™t impress foreigners. When the corporations in question are pursuing global markets, this is a serious problem. Many Koreans are concerned by what the Corea Image Communica…