Tag: South Korea

Seoul, South Korea – The majority of brands are turning to the power of technology in an effort to attract more consumers as through its leverage brands are able to cook up out-of-the-box marketing campaigns, and one that’s been emerging as a trend lately are influencers – no not the human ones – but the highly resembling, and animated counterpart of the breathing face of the brand – the virtual influencers. A lot of countries are seeing their brands jump to the bandwagon, but here’s what’s hot as of the moment – Korea has just launched its first-ever virtual influencer through a campaign by Shinhan Life, the newly established insurance company in South Korea.

Being fresh to the market, Shinhan Life has launched its first brand campaign titled ‘Shinhan Life adds surprises to life’, unveiling ‘Oh Rozy’, the country’s virtual human.

Done in collaboration with advertising agency TBWA\Korea, the campaign aims to target the country’s Millenials and Gen Zs, who are reshaping the conventions of the financial investment markets. By featuring virtual human ‘Rozy’, the company seeks to break down the traditional codes applied to financial communications to appeal to the targeted audience, as Shinhan believes that this demographic is responsive to trends and they prioritize personal values including individuality and preference when choosing a brand or a product. 

‘Rozy’ is designed with 3D technology by analyzing the face and characteristics which Gen Z in Korea prefers the most. She currently has over 21,000 followers on Instagram and like ordinary influencers, uploads photos of her daily life and actively communicates with her fans via comments.

Throughout the brand film, ‘Rozy’ is dancing to the music in various locations including the forest, city, and subway with the message – “That surprising life begins when you meet Shinhan Life.”

According to Shinhan Life, the music used and Rozy’s dance moves were specially created for the campaign after analyzing the most popular music and dance content from the short video app TikTok for those in their 20s and 30s. 

“As the brand ambassador, Oh Rozy has given Shinhan Life new and exciting ways to communicate and engage with Gen MZ, who are rising as the major consumer segment in the financial market,” said TBWA\Korea’s spokesperson.

The new campaign will be airing across TV, digital, and social.

Hong Kong – A celebration of those who never settle on things as they are as well as being bold in making life decisions: this is the latest mantra for whiskey brand Johnnie Walker as they unveiled its latest global brand activity, featuring South Korean rapper and singer-songwriter CL.

Formerly a part of the K-pop group 2NE1, CL’s powerful personal story of overcoming prejudice to become a global sensation and the first Korean solo female artist to break into the Billboard Top 100 list is explored in the campaign. Despite 2NE1 officially disbanding last 2017, CL went on a solo career journey, where she is known for tracks such as “The Baddest Female” and “Lifted”.

Furthermore, the campaign also features Johnnie Walker Highballs; vibrant and versatile serves that challenge traditional whisky conventions, made to be enjoyed at home as well as in restaurants, bars and for all casual occasions spent with friends. With options including the Johnnie Lemon Highball, Johnnie Peach Highball and Johnnie Ginger Highball, there’s a wide variety of flavors to suit individual tastes. 

Speaking about her participation in the campaign, she stated, “I’ve always hoped that by forging new paths, breaking down cultural barriers and challenging stereotypes, I could inspire others to never feel constrained by their background or the status quo they see in the world around them. With their 200-year history of pushing boundaries all over the world, I’m really excited to tell this story with Johnnie Walker.”

With the CL partnership, Johnnie Walker also kicks off the ‘Walkers’ program where the brand is looking at creating a global collective of individuals who are living examples of the Keep Walking philosophy. These are individuals with unwavering passion, defiant optimism, restless curiosity and their perspective of the world inspires people to push boundaries and taste more out of life. 

The Johnnie Walker + CL campaign now aims to appeal to the nature of consumers, who look for brands that stand for something and resonate with their own values, beliefs, and taste. It seeks to inspire them through a range of disruptive content starting with digital videos and various online and offline channels.

Over the past two years, Johnnie Walker has been communicating with consumers, platforms like the Busan International Film Festival, and various music festivals. Last year, due to the pandemic, it successfully accomplished an array of projects to communicate with consumers, such as the ‘Online Johnnie Party’ with famous bartenders and hip-hop musicians, and the hip-hop competition TV show ‘SHOW ME THE MONEY 9’.

Seoul, South Korea – As more and more K-pop groups are debuting in South Korea, social media has proved to be a driving force for these groups to be widely known by the general populace. This in turn gives the opportunity for these K-pop groups to be noticed by non-Korean fans globally, and hopefully build a global fanbase.

Such is the case for Twitter, which recently released findings of the platform usage by various K-pop groups, ranging from the so-called ‘Second-Generation’ groups such as Super Junior to Girls’ Generation to ‘Fourth-Generation’ groups such as ENHYPEN, ITZY, and Stray Kids.

The ‘Second-Generation’ groups were the first to build an online fanbase, including circles in Twitter, which is fueled by their strategic entry into other Asian markets and exploring global opportunities since 2009. Meanwhile, the ‘Third-Generation’ groups, which include BTS, BLACKPINK, TWICE, and Red Velvet expanded their global fan base through open platforms like YouTube, which gave birth to the globalization of the genre. Lastly, the ‘Fourth-Generation’ group are born from the proactive discussion of other K-pop groups globally before their official debut, fueled by online events as an alternative due to COVID-19 restrictions.

According to the data collected, K-pop stars averaged 1.2 tweets per day by second-generation stars, 3.5 tweets per day by third-generation stars, and seven tweets per day by fourth-generation stars. Fourth-generation stars also tweeted 5.8 times more than second-generation stars, and two times more than third-generation stars.

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In terms of tweeting after the debut of their respective groups, second-generation stars tweeted for the first time 1,154 days after their debut, third-generation artists tweeted for the first time 132 days after their debut, and fourth-generation artists tweeted for the first time 116 days before their debut.

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Analyzing the amount of tweets for a year following artists’ debuts reveals other differences between the generations as well. Most second and third-generation artists did not post tweets before their debut, and slowly increased their amount of tweets after their debut. However, a notable exception is BTS: BTS opened its Twitter account in December 2012, six months ahead of its debut, and actively communicated with fans globally. Currently, BTS has 36 million followers on Twitter.

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Meanwhile, Fourth-generation artists, such as ATEEZ, THE BOYZ, ENHYPEN, Stray Kids, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and TREASURE, communicated with their fans after opening their Twitter accounts, months ahead of their respective debuts. On average, fourth-generation artists tweeted an overwhelming amount before their debuts compared to second and third-generations, with each artist uploading an average of 323 tweets, and accumulating 562,377 followers even before debuting.

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For YeonJeong Kim, head of global K-pop and K-Contents partnerships at Twitter, direct communication with global fans through Twitter has now become a success formula for K-pop artists, adding that such activity demonstrates that digital-based communication has a significant impact on growing their fandom.

“When BTS, a 3rd generation K-pop group, had intimate real-time conversations with its global ARMY, it set an example for the 4th generation to make this a feature of their engagement with fans. Fourth-generation artists like THE BOYZ, Stray Kids, ATEEZ, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, GIDLE, ITZY, TREASURE, ENHYPEN, and aespa, who have been using Twitter as an active communication channel even before their debut, are advancing to the global stages faster than the previous generations,” Kim stated.

Seoul, South Korea – Global insurer Chubb has officially launched ‘Chubb LifeBalance’ in South Korea, a digital health and well-being platform, that encourages people to incorporate healthy routines into their lifestyle.

‘Chubb LifeBalance’ aims to assess the lifestyle of users and provide a holistic view of health to help them objectively measure and manage their own health condition. The app has a coaching functionality that monitors and encourages the user’s goals set within the platform, such as walking 5,000 steps a day, reducing snack consumption, and establishing a sleep routine, among others.

Furthermore, the health platform also tracks and records over 115 different activities, including yoga, swimming, boxing, and meditation, as well as letting the users invite their friends and family to join challenges and compete in the activities together. It connects with a full range of health devices and other apps such as Fitbit, Strava, and Garmin.

The health points, based on activities and goal achievements set on the app, can be exchanged for mobile vouchers at various coffee shops, gas stations, and grocery stores to enjoy varied benefits, which are only available as exclusive incentives to existing Chubb customers.

According to the company, reputable teams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) participated in building a credible health score system behind the app, which involved over 2,500 clinical papers and years of clinical data collected from over 300 million people, so that users can effectively monitor their overall health and well-being.

Edward Ler, the country president of Chubb Korea, said, “Chubb LifeBalance was created to offer more advanced and personalized health and well-being services for the customers in Korea who lead busy lifestyles. We believe Chubb LifeBalance will help our customers strive towards a sustainable and balanced lifestyle.”

The app is available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Singapore – Renowned Singaporean filmmaker Lincoln Lin, known for multiple awards in Mumbai International Film Festival and Singapore World International Film Festival, has launched a global platform Filmplace, which provides filmmakers booking options for filming locations.

Filmplace is the Singaporean filmmaker’s first foray into business where the platform also aims to help the local community in earning revenue for their home spaces.

Through the platform, filmmakers can source for film locations within minutes rather than spending days with a fixer or location manager. Users are able to source locations from anywhere in the world.

“With Filmplace, the production companies can book venues for a few hours or even minutes within their fingertips and there is transparent pricing that is negotiable. In addition to that, there are fresh locations daily that these companies can choose from,” the company said in a press statement.

Filmplace has already been rolled out in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea with a supporting office in India. 

“Currently, production companies need to hire a location manager which costs $300-$500 per day to nail down a couple of locations. The companies will then need to receive the locations, so it is very labor-intensive and manual,” Lin commented.

According to Lin, homeowners can monetize their home spaces in the platform where hosts can earn $500 -$2000 for a month, or around $800 per 10 hours, a contrast to earnings from the booking platform Airbnb, where homeowners earn $50-80 per night.

Singapore filmmaker Lincoln Lin, who is also the CEO of Filmplace

In order to get someone’s space enlisted on the Filmplace platform, users must sign up and provide needed information such as pictures of the location that’s going to be listed and the pricing for the company to verify. 

Having reached more than 1600 users, the company said they are beginning to roll out more incentives and convenience for registered hosts.

From 1 January to 28 February 2021, venue owners and homeowners can enjoy reduced service fees from Filmplace for every booking. Regular hosts will be charged a 5% service fee instead of 12% and Pro Hosts will be charged a 3% service fee down from 9%.

With the Pro Host program, space and homeowners can enjoy getting their location featured more prominently on Filmplace. A tier-based rewards system will be introduced sometime mid-2021 so the more bookings that a host gets, the more discount they can enjoy on service fees from Filmplace.

Filmplace will also roll out a mobile app version of its platform this year .

Seoul, South Korea – As many companies have endured a great deal in the mid of the global pandemic, Asian Boss has announced a fundraising via GoFundMe in an effort to save the company, which has been hugely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The South Korea-based media company runs a YouTube channel of the same name and covers local stories around Asia that are deemed to be of human interest. Their video format centers on the importance of every person’s opinion in regards to current affairs.

In a YouTube video uploaded on its official YouTube channel, Stephen Park, the startup’s CEO and co-founder, stated that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Boss needed to move out of their office in Seoul and cease operations brought by lack of funds.

“We were recently informed that our investors themselves went bankrupt and as a result, we’re just months away from running out of cash. We were already a small team, but we just had to make a tough decision of letting go 40% of our employees. At this rate, we’re going to have to stop all of our overseas productions as well,” Park stated.

Asian Boss has overseas correspondents in Japan, the Philippines, China, India, Thailand, and Indonesia, which cover domestic current issues in the respective countries, gathering public opinion from locals. Examples include interviewing Filipinos regarding the shutdown of the country’s major media network ABS-CBN.

He also stated that his fundraiser ‘appeal’ is to continue his vision of Asian Boss as a global community that can transform the mainstream media.

“What we need is a community. A movement. The type of movement that can fundamentally transform mainstream media to bring people together. The type of movement that can fundamentally transform mainstream media to bring people together. If you can help fund our operation, we’ll in return continue to create great content and make a bigger impact on people’s lives,” Park added, as the funds that will be collected will be used to extend the company rate by the end of this year.

As of this writing, Asian Boss has raised US$628,445 out of their target US$700,000.

Seoul, South Korea – Hyundai Motor and global superstars BTS are releasing a new song, “IONIQ: I’m On It” as one of the first ever campaigns of Hyundai’s new electric vehicle brand, IONIQ.

This will be BTS’ first music project with Hyundai. The song will be available for free download on the brand’s website starting August 31.

Meanwhile, the music video will be premiered on the company’s official worldwide Youtube channel, HyundaiWorldwide, on September 2nd at 11:00 AM, Korea standard time, where it is said to feature Hyundai’s latest electric vehicle (EV) model, Prophecy, unveiled in March.

The brand song “IONIQ: I’m On It” intends to give voice in line with the IQNIQ’s goal to offer customer centric EV experiences centered on connected lifestyle solutions.

The song carries the refrain ‘IONIQ takes me there.’ The lyrics – sung and rapped by BTS’s RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook – has been made to express feelings of “discovery, curiosity, hope, creativity, and inspiration for the future.”

Global Hyundai CMO Wonhong Cho said “Hyundai Motor and BTS have continued to collaborate to spread the value of the positive energy they pursue together beyond advertising specific vehicles. The new IONIQ lineup is Hyundai Motor’s answer to environmental problems and sustainable global communities that Millennials and Gen-Z generations are concerned about.”

Just this August, Hyundai Motor unveiled the IQNIQ brand dedicated to offering its battery EVs. The company is set to introduce three new EV models: IONIQ 5, IONIQ 6, and IONIQ 7 over the next four years, with IONIQ 5, which is a midsize CUV to be launched in early 2021.

To further engage fans on the IQNIQ campaign, Hyundai will be rolling out an online contest where a limited-edition cassette tape-shaped music player which contains two tracks – “IONIQ: I’m On It” and individual messages from each member of the band will be given out to winning fans.