Entertainer DNA into global brand marketing
Lee Seong-jin Director of Deloitte Consulting
By Lee Seong-jin
Psy's Billboard #2 ranking and 500 million views on YouTube is not only diversifying the image of K-Pop but is also having an explosive impact on the global awareness of Korea. His success shows that through the global network of mobile services and social media, the appeal of Korean entertainer DNA has enormous potential. However, on the business side, Korean corporations have yet to show a successful case of global brand marketing through social media and online. Why is this so?
In terms of overall brand power, Korean firms are making great progress, with Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors ranked among the top 100 global brands by Interbrand. The fact that these corporations are competing with names such as Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz, each with around a hundred years of history and unique brand stories, is amazing in itself. But on closer scrutiny, still the image of Korean brands in the minds of American and European consumers is “value for money, good quality product.” Brand character, a requirement to become healthy and long-lasting brand, is still very weak.
Marketing investments made by Korean corporations is already global in size. Korean brands are seen in global sports sponsorship such as the Olympics and the World Cup, costing billions of dollars; they are also seen in airports and cities all over the world. As a result, nine out of 10 people foreigners recognize Korean brands. But this type of one-way media exposure will be difficult to maintain. Already competitors such as China are catching up, using their huge amounts of capital to invest in branding. The Chinese solar power company Yingli is participating in World Cup sponsorship to increase their brand exposure to the global audience.
P&G's Mom Campaign, which gained global awareness during the 2012 London Olympics, is something more than brand name exposure marketing. The image of “supporting a mother's love for the family” is systematically conveyed worldwide through P&G websites, Facebook, TV commercials, and supermarket shelves. The campaign is changing the group's image away from that of a good quality maker of detergents and diapers after years of careful planning and large scale marketing investments, to convey a brand story and image easily and comfortably to the masses.
Korea's leading corporations have made swift progress from product R&D to sales through sales-driven marketing DNA. Their decision making process in large-scale investments is speedy. However, their game plan of conveying the story and brand image coherently through diverse media channels is somewhat lacking. Through corporate-wide investment of time and energy into combining the existing sales-driven DNA and entertaining DNA for global empathy, the result may be an unprecedented success case in global brand marketing.