Top beauty, beer companies draw CEOs at APEC

A visitor to the O'sulloc booth at Amorepacific's K-Beauty Pavilion inside HwangNyongWon corporate training center in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, right, places an order of matcha drink, Tuesday. Courtesy of Amorepacific

Companies with top market shares in Korea's beauty and beer industries have joined in the festivities surrounding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Gyeongju this week, promoting their top-selling brands to guests from around the world.

Amorepacific and Oriental Brewery Company (OBC) have both set up booths in the city in North Gyeongsang Province to woo CEOs, government officials and global business representatives on the sidelines of APEC events, including the CEO Summit and Economic Leaders' Meeting. Neither company is among the 66 official sponsors, which have either provided their products for participating guests or promoted the region's largest business forum on their own channels.

Amorepacific on Tuesday launched its K-Beauty Pavilion at HwangNyongWon, a corporate training center that has become a prominent local landmark, built to resemble a famed Silla-era pagoda that was once one of the tallest buildings in Asia. The venue is a block away from Gyeongju Hwabaek International Convention Center, where the economic leaders’ meeting will be held on Friday and Saturday.

Running alongside the CEO summit from Tuesday to Friday, the K-Beauty Pavilion targeted 1,700 CEOs and other top executives from 21 APEC member economies. Spouses of the VIPs who came along are also part of the beauty booth's key targets.

Oriental Brewing Company's (OBC) booth serves beers to participants of APEC CEO Summit at Gyeongju Arts Center in North Gyeongsang Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of OBC

The pavilion, according to the Seoul-based company, is where visitors can experience Amorepacific’s most popular brands, including Sulwhasoo, Hera, Laneige, Iope, Aestura, Cosrx and Makeon. Sulwhasoo is encouraging visitors to make their own bathing products, while Hera is demonstrating customized foundation and lip products on-site for visitors, based on artificial intelligence-aided skin tone analysis. The brand hosted a live makeup show on Wednesday.

The company also showcased its tea brand, O'sulloc, offering a variety of matcha drinks.

An Amorepacific official said the pavilion is a “strategic opportunity to showcase to the world the company’s 80 years of history of experimenting and advancing K-beauty.”

OBC has set up a booth inside Gyeongju Arts Center, where the CEO Summit is being held. It offered one of its most popular beers, Cass Fresh, along with alcohol-free variations such as Cass 0.0, Cass Lemon Squeeze and Cass Zero. Budweiser and Stella Artois, which the company imports, were also available free of charge.

Gu Ja-beom, senior executive vice president of OBC, said the company “catered to APEC global leaders as a market leader and representative of Korean beers.”