'Let consumers be the messengers'
Shin Hoon-joo, senior vice president of KT’s integrated marketing communication department, talks to Business Focus during an interview at KT Olleh Campus in southern Seoul, May 23. Korea Times photo by Yoon Sung-won
KT ad chief talks about story behind success of ‘All-IP’ song
By Kim Da-ye
Shin Hoon-joo, who leads the advertising department of Korea’s largest landline operator KT, says a commercial has to be fun so it gets redistributed by consumers. That’s exactly what happened with KT’s most recent commercial.
It’s more difficult than ever to produce a commercial, the senior vice president of the integrated marketing communication department says, because consumers are bombarded by so much information.
“Shocking stories from all over the world flood websites and mobile phones. There is really no space left for corporate messages,” Shin said. “Having the right message is a basic requirement. The priority is making an ad attractive to draw attention. The success of an ad depends on that.”
While the commercial featuring Akdong Musician is a hit now, it wasn’t easy for Shin and his team to create. .
Shin says working on the commercial for KT’s All-IP service was the biggest crisis of his 16-year career in advertising. He even had a stomach ulcer while struggling to come up with an idea.
The All-IP service is a comprehensive concept. It allows users to enjoy high-definition, data-heavy content on all kinds of devices like smartphones, personal computers, television and tablets.
KT’s high-speed network, with fourth-generation (4G) wireless access, allows people to get any content they want anywhere, anytime. For instance, users can watch high-definition movies on smartphones on the subway with the fourth-generation wireless network service and continue watching it at home on a television with a broadband connection.
“The All-IP campaign was the most difficult one I worked on,” Shin recalled. “Its concept had to be explained while the service didn’t have a particular single feature to highlight. Explaining the concept in the ad could become really boring, but it had to be done. No average commercial would be persuasive.”
Shin thought the story of the All-IP service could be narrated in a song. He was inspired by a song he saw performed on K-pop Star 2, “Don’t Cross Your Legs” by Akdong Musician. At the time, Akdong Musician was among a pool of some 30 contestants, but the duo would go on to win the show. Shin wanted Akdong Musician for the commercial, and soon a deal was made.
Shin met singers Lee Chan-hyuk, 17, and Soo-hyun, 14, for one day, which was all they could afford during the competition. Chan-hyuk started coming up with lyrics and tune as soon as the production team explained the All-IP service.
The duo, which is actually a brother and sister team, grew up in Mongolia and did not receive formal education in music. Since Chan-hyuk does not know how to read or write a score, he creates a tune by playing it on the guitar and writing the notes down in his own code. The composition took less than a day.
The lyrics go, “Smartphones, TV, tablets, Internet and landline phones. It was just a dream, but we go over the hill of imagination, and everything gets connected without boundaries.”
“Chan-hyuk is a genius. He is at the level of Beethoven, having written the song and lyrics in such a short period of time,” said Shin.
While Shin wouldn’t comment on the actual cost of the commercial — he does not want to affect Akdong’s negotiation with other firms in the future, he hints it was cheaper than most productions because the siblings weren’t celebrities at the time.
Once the All-IP commercial was out, it became a big hit, receiving hundreds of thousands of views online. Individuals, especially young children, sang the song in front of the camera and uploaded the videos on YouTube. Some parodied it to make their own online commercials.
“We didn’t even need to spend a lot of money to get the commercial broadcasted. It was circulating on websites and via SNS apart from television and other kinds of conventional media. In the meantime, Akdong was becoming more and more popular. The synergy between Akdong and KT was excellent,” said Shin.
A few years ago, it was common among corporations to create music videos as commercials. Popular singers starred in the spots, sometimes showing off certain products. Yamaha’s Fiore motorcycle was promoted by 2NE1 in a commercial where the group sang, “Don’t Stop the Music.” LG Electronics used Big Bang and 2NE1’s “Lollipop” to advertise mobile phones with the same name.
While KT also used pop stars to promote its new service, Shin says the ad differs from a music video because it doesn’t use product placement to promote the product.
The ad chief says he’s usually skeptical about hiring so-called “big models” — most popular celebrities of the time. While a well-known face is a safe bet and is relatively easy to coordinate with, celebrity ads rarely go viral or get reproduced by ordinary consumers, says Shin. Plus, many celebrities appear in multiple commercials, making their appearance less effective.
Shin says KT focuses on a commercial’s message and then figures out who can convey that message, which is a different approach than that other companies take.
“Other firms find models liked by many people first, but we define the purpose of an ad first, create a story, and then find a person who can tell the story charmingly,” said Shin.
KT applied this strategy to the production of the famous “Fast! Fast! LTE WARP Olleh” ad with music trio Busker Busker.
Shin’s mission was establishing the message that KT’s long-term evolution service is fast. Long-term evolution, also known as 4G, offers high-speed data transfer in wireless communication, and KT was the last mobile career to launch the service among the three major firms.
KT and the advertising agency wanted to create a song that gets stuck in consumers’ ears and mouths. One member of the agency Shin’s department worked with suggested lyrics of French singer Edith Piaf’s song “Padam Padam” be changed to “Bbareum Bbareum,” which means “fast, fast” in Korean.
Another member of the agency proposed an idea of drawing cartoons on an actor’s skin and smudging the ink to make it look like the images are moving fast. The agency hoped this would draw on childhood memories of Koreans drawing on their hands with a water-based pen and smudging the drawing to add some funky effects.
The team combined the ideas and set out to find someone with both drawing and singing abilities. The team found out Jang Beom-jun, the lead singer of Busker Busker, studied animation in college. Jang brought the idea to life in the LTE ads.
After the commercial hit the airwaves, Shin noticed adults and children humming the song and heard the song played as a ringtone.
The commercial won an award at the 2012 Korea Advertising Awards. At Sookmyung Women’s University, 95 percent of public relations and advertising students said they liked KT’s commercial for the LTE service more than its competitors’. More than 70 percent of students said they liked the commercial because the idea was novel.
Shin says the ad was also different in its production. KT’s integrated marketing communications department worked closely with the production team, which is unusual. In Korea, various advertisement agencies produce ads for a new product, and the firm picks the best. KT usually works with Cheil Worldwide, an advertising affiliate of Samsung Group.
“Most advertisers would get involved only at an early stage for planning and coming up with strategy. Agencies decide whom to hire as models and write scripts, but we always work with the agency throughout the creative process. This way, we save time and make sure that our ideas and those of the agency are well aligned,” Shin said. “To make this happen, the advertiser has to have an ad expert.”
When asked what his source of creativity is, he said he walks around the street and take a long soak in the bath to concentrate and develop ideas
“I walk around and think about the surroundings. Every object has its own story when I let my imagination run free. There will be one good idea among 100 imaginations. When I share with the experts, it gets even better. Once the idea is attractive enough, I will rely on consumers to spread it.”