Stand up for the Korean Wave

Soft power packs a powerful punch?

South Korea is developing sizeable cultural soft power, and is using it to influence consumers all over the world. There is even a Korean word for it; Hallyu, which roughly translates to “The Korean Wave” and there is plenty of evidence for its success:?

• South Korean K-Pop bands Blackpink and BTS were named Entertainer of the Year by Time Magazine in 2022 and 2020 respectively.
• South Korean movie Parasite became the first non-English language film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020.
• South Korean TV show Squid Game was the most streamed show ever on Netflix, with 1.65 billion hours watched in total.?

Seoul Searching – the numbers don’t lie?

South Koreans have the second-highest internet usage?and the?third-highest social media usage worldwide. This has enabled South Koreans to share their culture globally including in the UK, in fact, the?V&A museum?is currently hosting an exhibition exploring the makings of the Korean Wave (and it’s well worth a visit!) Younger generations especially are exposed to Korean culture through the internet and social media more than ever before. Indeed, nearly 30% of Gen Z and Millennials worldwide say that they like to consume TV, books, films, or music from South Korea (GWI, 2021).??

Surfing the Korean Wave?

So, can the West learn from South Korea and ride this wave? In the UK, influencer/fan relations and interactions change greatly depending on the size of the fanbase. Micro-influencers typically cultivate close relationships with their fans and show higher levels of engagement and care because they are more dependent on them. However, macro-influencers and celebrities that benefit from a broader fan base (and typically more commercial opportunities) don’t typically invest the same amount of time and effort into their relationships with their fans.?

In South Korea, this distinction between micro and macro influencers is less evident. Even celebrities with millions of followers will engage with their fans in the same familiar and caring way that micro-influencers in the UK do. A clear example of this is when singer and actress Lee Ji-eun recently released?a letter?to her fans explaining her new romantic relationship with actor Lee Jong-suk (koreaboo.com, 2022). In the letter, she apologises for not being more upfront about the relationship:?

“I’m sorry for the surprise, but I feel even more sorry and thankful to our UAENA (Lee Ji-eun’s fan group) who were asking me about this and congratulating me first”. She goes on to promise that the relationship will not interfere with her fan engagement: “Thank you so much for having fun with me for the past year and being my closest friends! I will also not laze around this year! I will do my best.”?

Commitment cuts both ways?

Extreme Korean fandom means that fans invest more time and effort into their relationships with influencers and celebrities as well, such as paying for billboards on the metro to wish their idols ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Thank you for the concert’. As an example of this commitment,?a single fan of Blackpink spent $30,000 on billboards in Times Square to wish Jenny (one of their singers) a happy birthday.?

Although these relationships may seem more taxing for influencers and celebrities, they are more rewarding for fans and provide more profitable sponsorship opportunities for companies. The UK influencer market is oversaturated, and consumers are increasingly looking for genuine connections as brands search for more engaged audiences. To cultivate loyal and long-lasting relationships with consumers, UK-based influencers and celebrities will need to evolve their engagement strategies. South Korean influencer’s relationships with fans could provide a blueprint from which to learn.?

The K-Marketing Experience?

The other social media fuelled aspect of Korean consumer culture that I predict we will learn from is retail marketing. The aim of much retail space in South Korea is first and foremost meant to be experiential, designed to help Koreans curate their social media image rather than to make a sale. These spaces often have a minimalist aesthetic and utilise open space to accentuate the quality of experiences.??

One of the home-grown Korean brands that best exemplifies this vision of retail marketing is?Gentle Monster, which creates innovative and exciting retail spaces to wow its consumers. Ultimately, these brands have recognized that they are not just trying to make a sale to the in-store customer but to the thousands of social media users who will see the shared stories and posts of that in-store customer.?

Given the growth of online shopping, it’s been recognised that retail spaces in the UK must reinvent themselves or risk falling behind. It might be safe to predict that retail spaces in the UK will gradually shift towards the South Korean model of being more like hospitality spaces curated for experiences. Companies will have to embrace this change wholeheartedly, with store layouts being designed to facilitate experiences rather than displaying and storing products; staff will need to be trained in hospitality to cater to consumer experiences rather than to make sales, and performance metrics will need to be adapted to focus on social media reach and engagement rather than solely on sales. Finally, marketing budgets will need to be reallocated to enable the design and build of these new in-store experiences.?

Konclusion: The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators?

Given the deployment of 5G technologies and the increased use of social media, especially among younger consumers, it is worth looking at and learning from a hyper-connected consumer society such as South Korea. This will give us insight into the trends we are likely to see emerging in the UK and will allow us to better prepare for the inevitable disruptions these trends will cause, whether it is influencers rethinking their fan engagement or companies redesigning their retail strategy.?

The final thought I want to leave you with is that, given the current direction of movement, there will be an inevitable shift to a merged virtual and physical world. Consumers will expect that these worlds blend seamlessly, yet each offer unique interaction opportunities. A great example of this new marketing frontier is the?Korean pop band aespa, who exist separately in the physical world and the virtual world through avatars. aespa offer their fans new ways to interact with them, and provide companies with new and (so far) unique sponsorship opportunities. Unless we embrace these new frontiers more readily, the future of marketing will not be in the UK.?