Why is there no more Kimchi for Korean media, instead it's KakaoTalk and Naver search.

Welcome to this episode of Speak PR. Today. I'm delighted to have an old friend and partner, Hee Sang Yoo from Seoul in South Korea joining me to talk about public relations in the Southeast Asian nation of South Korea. Heesung. Come Sam.

Thank you. Grateful to join your podcast.

Tell us a little bit about South Korea for people that don't know it and tell us then a little bit about the characteristics of media relations. And we're going to talk about then digital in South Korea.

We have a population of 50 million in South Korea. Korea is located between China and Japan. We are not big enough, but not small enough either. Korea is important in a sense that even though we are not really that big, but one of the fastest growing economy and also we have a lot of, you know, now Korean based multinational company in the world just like Samsung. Korean media is a little bit different than the other. The first thing is we have a lot of media in Korea compared to our population. For instance, we have about 20 dailies which is kind of national. We subdivide into like general daily, business daily, English daily, and we even have an IT daily that covers only IT on a daily basis. And we used to have a sports daily that covers all sports, but that segment is going down a little bit. Korean media is a bit different than the other nation in a sense that it is not only media, but the media actually contribute to every aspect of social life and political life and also business life. And it is changing. But still Korean media is very conservative. A lot of Korean journalists still don't speak English very well. So Korean is most widely spoken language. And one of the things that you need to think about is Korean journalists have some sort of a mindset. They are better than other, so they expect to be treated a little bit differently.

And when you say better than others, do you mean that the Korean journalists believe they're better than other journalists or they're better than your average citizen, Every.

Citizen, because it's hard to get to the media scene because only such people join. And actually Korean media started during the Japanese occupation and most of the journalists work there has a mindset that we are leading the population fighting for Japanese occupation. So they have a mindset and even general public actually respected that and that actually extended to now. So whenever I took a journalist to overseas to meet a trip, especially Japan, especially in the us I actually asked them to not talk to immigration if they are journalists. Because in Korea, if you're a journalist in those kind of situations, you get a better treatment from the customs and government. But in the US you'll be in big trouble. And I have a number of cases that they even though I told them don't say that they just be in the US just for business purpose or tourist, but they say I'm journalist and they US customs like to know why you are here, what you want to meet and all have a breakup. So that's kind of mindset that the Korean journalists still have. It is slowly changing, but still a lot of journalists have think that they are better than anybody else and supposed to be treated a little bit better.

Wow, that's fascinating. And then when it comes to talking with them, he's saying you run your own agency in Seoul, right? And I've happy memories of going to Seoul back in the early 90s to music studios actually was where I went on business trips to Seoul. When you talk about the media feeling a little bit more special, how does that work when it comes to for example pitching stories then to the media?

Well, number one, the other thing that you need to think about is Korean media. Usually journalist has a lot of stuff they need to do. It used to be a little less and they may have more interaction with the PL guys or community guys. But because of the business hardship by a lot of publications, they are not having as many journalists as it used to be. Which means single journalists have a lot more jobs than he need to do like 10 years before than now. Which means they need to report like file like four or five reports every day. Aside from a semester job and other things. That means you need to have a kind of a person material that look a little bit like a elevated page. Everything should be in first and second. The key thing the important should be in the first and second paragraph and then less important after that. A lot less important than that. Otherwise you will not get their attention. If they do not get that right away, most of your media outreach, you know, material will go straight to the trash. So I always ask, whenever we have kind of press equity with the client, I ask them to. Number one, translates first. Number two, localization, which means make it a little more like what the Korean like to get and get their attention easier and get their coverage faster. But most like the US or non Korean PR material has a little bit worthy. You need to read every single paragraph to get what they're trying to say. If you do it in Korea, they're not going to do it because they have too many things to do and there's too many. All the material that you're competing, either multinational or current Company provide which suits their. I mean the journalist's point of view which means a risk important thing put in the first paragraph or at least second paragraph and then follow up with the less and less important thing. I think that's kind of a very key when you think about providing press material to Korean journalists. Don't use the same format, same sequence which will not pick up easily by the transient is not because they are lazy but because they have so many things to do. So think about when you do approach material elevator pitch, everything should be important first and second parallel.

Yeah, that's interesting. And then let's touch on a sensitive subject which we face often in China about the cash for coverage. Is the Korean journalist or media used to having for example travel money and expenses paid for events and coverage?

Well, actually it was what we call family trip which you know, the company provide everything A to Z to cover to their but that is no longer the case because there was a bribery law where you cannot get that. So it used to be and we used to give some Money it's like 15, 20 years ago. Not the multinational Korean companies like Samsung and LG when they have a press conference or prayer meeting, they provide some cash for just, you know, transportation. They say that but it's not transportation. But the journalists move from their office to their. So but it's all gone. And even the family trip or inviting Korean journalists to overseas or for instance Samsung like to invite a lot of Korean journalists to either COMDEX or ks whatever it used to be the case. But there was a law enacted I think about three or four years ago that does not allow. So there's a set amount you cannot invite. So every journalist needs to go there on their own expense. And you can only get $50 for lunch or dinner. That's the maximum, I think $6 for giveaway. So that kind of thing is happening. So after that law enacted, most of the Korean press conference is being a little bit different. So they don't give it usually invite them about 11am do one hour press conference and serve lunch and follow up with like, you know, giveaway. But that doesn't. It's no longer the case we to provide at the most lunchbox or without food and beverage, just beverage to avoid the breach of the private law.

And are there now more virtual media conferences taking place? Because that's certainly been a trend here in Europe.

I think it's a bit different because whenever I had a meeting with either client or partner in the US or European and I usually do it in my office and they are in their home. And they were kind of shocked. And I was shocked too because Korea never been locked down at all. The Korean government advised to do social distancing, hygiene, wearing masks, but we never did any lockdown. So we still do press conference on at least hybrid format, which means either invite aesthetic people or the journalists come via online and the client do its own press conference and broadcast so that the journalists can listen. But I think that we never went to all except when there's a spike in Seoul greater Seoul area which is about 60% of Korean population lives. So it's very congested. So Korean government is very rare when we have some problem in Daegu area which is far from central city and not that congested. So we can manage it. But Seoul county is really really big. So we have the current government employed like strict regulation. Even at that time we still have press conference on hybrid format. And with the easing we get more and more offline, even starting to networking, meeting on offline, not online.

You talk about hybrid. Let's just talk about the particular platforms that are used in Korea.

I think Zoom is the most popular, even current government use. But I think that Micro Meeting and Google Meet Micro Teams is actually catching up because Zoom have some problem integrity wise and some sort of a technical problem. It may be easy, but you also think about those aspects. So still Zoom is the number one. But Microsoft Teams and Google Meet catching up.

Well, let's just talk about your equivalence to Facebook and WhatsApp. You've mentioned KakaoTalk. Can you just tell us about Kakaotalk in Korea?

Yeah, Kakaotalk is kind of market leader. This is the first chat program launch way before there's a WhatsApp and also line. And it just dominated the market. It is now a platform that not only for talk, but for finance, order, travel, transportation, like taxi where you can reserve your taxi. So it became a kind of platform and it's really, really, really big. So I think that nobody really know about Kakao Talk outside of Korea. But when you're in Korea, everybody use Kakao Talk. And I think South Asia there's a line which is also Korean product, but line in Korea is kind of secondary. So first you use Kakaotalk line, bold secondary WhatsApp not really a lot other than that. Even WeChat we don't really use it.

So for a social media campaign for a client, you're using the media relations and then you're using Kakaotalk and any other platforms he sang, that you'd use for a client to get noticed.

Well I think that kind of equivalent to Facebook in Korea maybe is also by Kakao Story which is similar but easier. So a lot of youngsters and people who can speak non Korean language use Facebook traditional Korean who do not speak English have trouble with the English they tend and older population tends to use Kakao Story. So when we do digital media, digital marketing, we do two channels. If it's mostly younger generation who speak mostly than Facebook, we're targeting more senior older people do not really talk in English then Kako Story is better to reach.

And you mentioned before this Naver blog. What's Naver Blog then?

Naver is sort of a Google of Korea. So in Korea we do not use Google for search. Naver is the number one search engine. So Naver used to dominate the market and they have the DOM blogging which a lot of Koreans use. So still it's getting less less because of Facebook. And also the YouTube is still really, really popular. So when we do digital PR talk to vehicle is Facebook and Navel Blog.

He'S saying sounds fantastic and thank you so much for sharing. Sounds like a whole wealth of experience there and different challenges for people that are going to be marketing their businesses in South Korea. If you want to find out more about you, he sang, how can they find you?

You can reach me via my company homepage which is www.pl I s n c o m s.com or my LinkedIn page which is LinkedIn and h e E S A N G Y O.

O Hee Sang, you joining us from Prism Communications in Seoul. Thank you so much for sharing such great insights about South Korea today.

It was my pleasure.

For those of you listening, I hope you found that useful. Lots of interesting tips and thoughts about another market. So thanks again for listening to this episode of Speak PR and we wish you the best of health and a profitable business and that if you're going international that you think about some of the local flavors and the local channels and the local tips for communicating with local journalists. Thanks again for listening.