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A big difference between Asia and North America.

Last Sunday, a friend of mine interviewed me on her research paper.

She is a psychology UBC graduate student.

The topic of interview was this:

Do Asian people seek for help to professionals when they have a problem?

And while I was being interviewed, I found myself that I’m not willing to seek for help…..

And she told me that so far she has researched on this topic and interviewed with many people

with different backgrounds and found out this:

Asian people are afraid to go see professionals when they have problems, especially.

As I introduced myself on my first post of this blog, my background is Asia.

So I figured, counseling industry is a blue ocean in Asia countries.

This could be one of options when I start my business in Asia countries.

 

 

<Girl’s generation>

Girl’s generation (소녀시대), a girl group consisting of nine hot girls in Korea, is really BIG particularly in Asia and Europe.

We call this phenomena the Korean waves.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the Korean waves, here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

The Korean Wave, also known as the Hallyu, refers to spread of South Korean culture  around the world.

As Japan has led a music industry until recently across Asia,

the entertainment management company which has made Girl’s generation successful

considered Japan the hardest target market to conquer.

In the past,

the entertainment agency couldn’t achieve big success with other singers before Girl’s generation

when its branding strategy was “localization,”

following Japanese fans’ preference, for example, the image of girls’ “cuteness.”

Needless to say,

the past Korean singers weren’t differentiated in the Japanese market in terms of fashion and music style.

So, this time, the agency decided to change their strategy to keep Girl’s generation exotic in Japan

by sticking to Korean style in everything.

This strategy succeeded at catching attention from Japanese music fans.

Another secret of success was Girl’s generation’s fluency in either Japanese or English

so there’s less language barrier to Japanese fans, their customers so to speak.

Not only that, Girl’s generation debuted after getting trained in singing and dancing for about five years,

whereas Japanese girl groups normally debut not being perfect in singing and dancing

but show how they improve as time goes by because Japanese fans like that way.

Japanese fans support their idol, thinking the idol and themselves grow together.

For instance, that’s how Morning Musume (モーニング娘), a Japanese girl group, became really big.

<Morning Musume>

Here’s a clip of Girl’s generation’s one of Japanese songs.

To sum up,

Girl’s generation’s branding strategy

in terms of keeping their style, speaking local language and performing perfectly since first debut

enabled them to differentiate themselves from other Korean singers who failed in Japan and other Japanese girl groups.

Smart branding strategy is everything in surviving in any market.

Being a person who respects  Steve Jobs for his passion and creativity

I’ve kept  his inspirational thoughts and ideas toward the life in my journal.

When I heard the sad news that Steve Jobs passed away, I asked myself what he has left other than Apple products.

Soon after I started keeping track of quotes I’ve written down,

I figured it’s his inspiration and insights which we could apply to advertising.

Here’s a quote which has been stuck in my head ever since I read it:

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity.

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Steve Jobs [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998]

So when it comes to the idea of focus and simplicity in advertising,

nothing beats images and pictures as they are straight forward and they have concentrated message.

So, the simpler, the stronger.

Here are examples of advertisements to show how amazingly images and pictures convey its messages.

Simplified message definitely needs a long process to branch out unnecessary ideas and eventually focus on one idea.

It is really hard to come to one idea.

However, as we see the ads above, the images themselves are so straight forward and strong

that we don’t even need any explanations or words.

Therefore, people are likely to remember the ad more easily.

Simplicity always wins!

Oreo wanted to convey its new slogan “Milk’s favourite cookie” to consumers.

So, the ad company which was in charge of Oreo’s request

came up with unique and brilliant way,

Youtube marketing,

to present the slogan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pieces of paper are simply attached on the outside of the elevator.

Upper sticker is Oreo cookie and the bottom one is a cup of milk.

When the elevator moves up and down, Oreo cookie is dipped into a cup of milk.

For better understanding, here’s the clip.

As soon as the video clip of this ad was put up on Youtube, compliments on this brilliant ad were pouring,

and needless to say,

it recorded thousands of hits through word-of-mouth.

Further, it was rapidly passed on to variety of media such as news, web magazines and portal sites

and even worldwide personal bloggers.

Can you guess how much was spent on making that Oreo and milk stickers?

Only couple of dollars!

But the couple of dollars sticker made million dollars effect worldwide.

With regard to extremely small budget on the advertisement,

Oreo must have made some companies reconsider their ad strategies.

For rising companies in particular whose ad strategies rely on celebrities to increase their brand images,

enormous ad budget is inevitable.

Here’s a question.

Which could attract more potential customers in the 21 century? Brilliant ideas? OR Big name stars?

Before you answer, you should not forget you are living where everyone can be easily connected on the internet

anytime and anywhere in the world.

As long as you wisely and innovatively use social media tools,

AND people find your ad brilliant,

they will retweet, facebook like, and share it voluntarily for free.

Smart usage of media makes big results with small budget.

Hi guys!

I’m Dury Jun in a third year who just started studying Marketing!

Until July, I honestly couldn’t make up my mind on what to specialize in amongst many different options. However, the idea that people in Marketing industries read customers’ thoughts and minds and sometimes even manipulate their willingness to purchase their products really fascinated me.

Products itself don’t scream. It’s Marketing people who actually make goods and services attractive and worth buying. No matter how fantastic or awesome products are, success on appealing to potential customers does really depend on Marketing strategies. You would not be able to make a penny even with your proud quality products if there’s no brilliant and outstanding advertisement supportive.

I’ve thought about this since I first came to Canada two years ago.

Being a person who grew up in Korea, I always crave Asian food, especially any Korean food not to mention. However, what I usually see is Japanese restaurants. Yes, I have to admit that Western find Sushi or Sashimi yummy, healthy, and not greasy at all.       When localizing and adapting food is a key strategy on whether to survive foreign food markets, Japanese food obviously achieved a great success.

Then, in this very moment, I want to ask you a quick question.

Have you heard of “Bibimbap”?

I highly doubt it.

Bibimbap is a Korean dish mixed of cooked rice with various vegetables, beef (optional), garnishes and fried red pepper paste. It’s considered one very good dish among Vegan and healthy food freak. Plus, people can put in or take out any ingredients according to their preferences. Unfortunately, not many people in North America even don’t seem to know whether Bibimbap exists. As a number of people in North America are getting more and more health conscious these days, I surely thought Bibimbap has enormous potential to grow big. I just wished more people would get to know this yummy and healthy food.      But you know what??

One day, I happened to find Bibimbap commercial on Youtube!!

Here’s a clip.

The very first word I spit when I found this was this;

Hurray!! X)

See how vegetables are presented by “colors” of people’s clothing? For example, Bibimbap’s one ingredient, carrots are represented by people wearing orange clothes. People in Korean traditional clothes are performing traditional dances and martial arts. This clip greatly introduce Korean food and traditions at the same time. The way people who created this ad melted them together is neither complicated nor too much to foreigners by simplifying both with “Color”.

Massive information at once never works.

Simplifying always wins.

Yes, as you see, there existed a commercial video for Bibimbap and this was even advertised at Time Square in NYC!! Since it’s on Time Square screen, the number of people trying out this new dish has increased progressively in NYC.

I again realized the power of advertisement ever since and found how fascinating it would to be a part of successful ad crews.

BUT

I have NO experience with marketing yet. On top of that, I really don’t know which area of marketing interests me. I only know that I’ll be more capable in dealing with Asian targeted products as I have Asian background. Specifically, I’m well aware of Northeast Asian culture. In addition, I found art history pretty interesting. If I decided to study art history further, I might be able to relate my marketing knowledge to this art industry related job. Nothing has decided and I’m still in search of my interests.

Hope I’m able to find my interests by this semester.

Wish me luck! 🙂