What is this phenomenon that seems to have taken over and making people rodeo dance?  It is none but the famous 34-yeal-old rapper Park Jae-sang from South Korea that has the whole world dancing to his new beats, Gangnam Style. Just last week PSY held a free concert for 80’000 fans in Seoul, bringing the whole city to a stop, what is truly impressive about the concert was that the municipal authorities gave PSY the permission to perform outside the city hall where traffic was blocked.

What interested me was why the municipal authorities would allow such a thing? And so willingly? Well it so happens that Gangnam Style has been South Korea’s biggest music import, just on YouTube alone it has reached 400 million views, also reaching #2 on music charts both in the U.S and U.K. With this the government saw an opportunity to change how the world saw South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the president of south Korea, has been highlighting the importance of “establishing a national brand”, lucky for the president there is a an important wave working for Korea as it becomes the lead in pop music.  This popularity all over the world is creating a softer and higher quality image of Korea; this helps many industries such as cosmetics, TV production and even foreign exchange. This phenomenon helps define the importance of marketing and how it can affect the economy on a grand scale.

Mundy, Simon. “What Gangnam Style is doing to brand South Korea.” Globe and Mail. N.p., 8 Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.

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