NK newspaper runs rare advertisements

The Pyongyang Sinmun, a North Korean newspaper, runs an advertisement for flower services in its Oct. 4th edition, according to the North’s Chosun Central TV, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Kim Young-jin

A North Korean newspaper has in recent weeks run advertisements for clothes and other products in the latest sign of the Stalinist state attempting to update its economy.

The ads in the Pyongyang Sinmun include those for flowers and flowerpots; “hanbok” or traditional Korean dress; and a water-heating device using solar power. Analysts say new leader Kim Jong-un is tinkering with the economy after pledging to improve living conditions.

Kim, who took power in December, has commented on the need for the North’s economy to catch up with “global trends.” During a visit to a hosiery factory in July, he underscored the importance of trademarks in a rare reference to marketing.

That followed a call by a North Korean economic quarterly for promoting exports abroad through commercials. Such comments may have made room in the tightly-controlled state for advertising.

“It is part of economic testing,” said John Delury, an expert at Yonsei University. “It shows there is continuing trial and error going on.”

Despite an uptick in market activities in recent years, the North remains nearly void of ads, opting instead for propaganda extolling the ruling Kim family. Billboards for Pyeonghwa Motors, a joint venture between the North and the South Korea-based Unification Church are among its rare forays into advertisements.

But an increasing consumer culture has been taking root especially in Pyongyang mostly through cash earned through increased cooperation with China. Popularity is driven by a growing market culture approved by the regime.

Other changes have been made to give the North a more modern feel.

Pyongyang has long proclaimed 2012 as the year it would arrive as a “strong and prosperous” state and concentrated efforts to renovate the capital city with new apartments as well as shopping and recreation facilities. It has revamped its news broadcasts with computerized backdrops. Kim is often accompanied in public by his young wife.

Pyongyang has flirted with ads before. In 2009, the North's television aired commercials for the homegrown Taedonggang beer which were followed by those for products such as ginseng and quail. But amid rampant speculation that late leader Kim Jong-il was moving to introduce capitalist themes, the advertisements soon ceased and the regime’s point man on television was fired.

Speculation that the North would implement major changes spiked again last month when its rubber stamping parliament convened for a meeting amid reports that agricultural reform measures had been passed internally.

The meeting drew interest because it was widely regarded as “extraordinary” as it was the second gathering in a year after the parliament typically met once annually under the Kim Jong-il, the current leader’s late father.

But some experts say Kim Jong-un will likely hold two meetings a year, returning to style of his grandfather, country founder Kim Il-sung. The disappointment here over the lack of reform measures therefore may be overblown, they say.

Delury said the economic culture in the North was more likely to continue to “unfold gradually” rather than through sudden major reforms.

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