LG wins minds and hearts of consumers
By Kim Tae-gyu
LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo speaks during the New Year ceremony at the group’s head office in Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of LG Group
Companies are typically tempted to exaggerate benefits of their products while conceal faults and problems with them. However, there are no rules without exceptions.
In Korea, LG Group seems to be the exception in resisting the temptation to become a corporate spin doctor, and consumers are responding to the ethics of the conglomerate.
Recently, domestic internet users voluntarily uploaded and shared pictures of LG Electronics’ V20 smartphone to show how resistant they were to external shocks, an advantage that the handset maker did not highlight.
A blogger posted an article to show the precise weight of LG Electronics’ ultra-light laptop dubbed the Gram 15.
After its launch last year, the representative subsidiary of LG Group announced that the 15.6-inch device weighs 980 grams but the blogger demonstrated that the real weight was 950 grams.
“The marketing point of the Gram 15 was its light weight, so it would be natural for the manufacturer to overstate how light it is. But what LG did was the opposite,” said a Seoul analyst who asked not to be named.
“Marketing experts would not recommend such an approach but it wins hearts and minds of consumers, who are rattled by the marketing blitz of so many other enterprises. That’s why they find and share good points about LG products on their own.”
A similar incident also took place outside the country ― in 2012; the FQ refrigerator of LG Electronics survived a tornado that ripped through a small town in South Africa.
The news, which was reported by a citizen, prompted people to joke that LG refrigerators would be nuclear bomb proof.
Good reputation of LG leaders
In addition, most members of the LG Group owner family have maintained a good reputation unlike other chaebol.
Most of the country’s business tycoons have criminal records and some are currently on trial but LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo has been free from such stigmas.
In fact, LG’s founder Koo In-hwoi, Chairman Koo’s grandfather, is famous for having financially underpinned the country’s armed resistance who fought against Japanese colonial rule (1910-45).
Back then, the support was a really brave action ― Koo risked his wealth and even his life if he was caught by Japan helping the independence fighters.
Along with other chaebol, LG Group was also embroiled in the political scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her shadowy friend Choi Soon-sil, who is now in prison.
The Seoul-based group donated a substantial amount of funds to two cultural foundations of which establishment and operation was masterminded by Choi and her aides.
However, people distinguish LG Group from others in that the former made the donations without asking for any favors or special treatment while some others are suspected for having requested them.
After the unprecedented corruption scandal erupted late last year, LG Group was first to leave the Federation of Korean Industries, the business lobby that encouraged its major members to make the contribution.
Instead of criticizing LG Group, citizens try to find out the outfit’s unrecognized good-will campaigns, which it hardly advertises.
For example, LG Group provides up to 100 million won to people who have done good deeds but in case the recipients do not want their identity to be known, they do not disclose them at all.
Since the campaign started in 2015 in line with Chairman Koo’s requests, LG Group gave the awards to 28 people and the most recent recipient is a navy officer who saved someone’s life on a train platform late last month.
The officer decided to donate the award money but the group did not unveil the amount because the officer did not want it to do so.