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. Hee Sang, 감사합니다.

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 economies, and also we have a lot of, you know, now Korean-based multinational companies 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 the most widely spoken language. And one thing that you need to think about is Korean journalists have some sort of a mindset they are better than others, 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?

Average citizen, because it's hard to get to the media scene. It's because only select 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 journalists overseas to media trip, especially Japan, especially in the US, I actually asked them to not talk to immigrants immigration that they are journalists. Because in Korea, if you're a journalist in those kinds of situations, you get 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, just be in the US just for business purpose or tourist, but they say, I'm a journalist. And the US customs like to know why you are here. What are you going to do? me and all have a backup. 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 have 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 just has a lot of stuff they need to do. It used to be a little less, and they may have more interaction with the PR 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 a single journalist have a lot more jobs than He needs to do like 10 years before than now, which means they need to report, like file like 4 or 5 reports every day aside from a semester job and other things. That means you need to have a kind of a personal material that looks a little bit like an elevator pitch. Everything should be in first and second The key thing, the important thing 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 can. So I always ask, whenever we have kind of press material with the client, I ask them to number one, translate first, number two, localize, which means make it a little bit more like what the Koreans like to get, and get their attention easier, and get the coverage faster. But most like US or non-Korean PR material has a little bit wordy. 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 other materials that you're competing, either multinational or Korean company provide, which suits their— I mean, the journalist's point of view, which means every— 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 very key when you think about, you know, providing press material to Korean journalists. Don't use the same format, same sequence, which will not pick up easily by the Korean journalists. It's not because they are lazy, but because they have so many things to do. So think about when you do approach and send press material, everything should be important, first things second priority.

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 provides 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, like it's like 15, 20 years ago. Now the multinational Korean companies like Samsung and LG, when they have a press conference or press meeting, they provide some cash for just, you know, transportation. They say that, but it's not transportation, but because the journalists move from their office to their— so, but it's all gone. And even the family trip or inviting Korean journalists 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 3 or 4 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's 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 11:00 AM, do 1-hour press conference and serve lunch and follow up with some giveaway. But that doesn't— it's no longer the case. We usually Usually do provide at the most lunchbox or without food and beverage, just beverage to avoid the breach with the privacy 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 the meeting with either either client or partner in the U.S. or Europe. 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. We— 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 a select 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 is 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 worried 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, Gangneung is really, really big. So we have— The Korean government applies like strict regulation. Even at that time, we still have a press conference on a hybrid format. And with the easing, we get more and more offline. Even we are 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 the Korean government use, but I think that Microsoft Teams is actually catching up because Zoom have some problem in security-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 are catching up.

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

Well, yeah, KakaoTalk is kind of market leader. This is the first chat program launched way before there's 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 call 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 knows about KakaoTalk outside of Korea, but when you're in Korea, everybody uses KakaoTalk. And I think South Asia, there's Line, which is also a Korean product, but Line in Korea is kind of secondary. So first you use KakaoTalk, Line for 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, Heesang, 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 Koreans who do not speak English, have trouble with the English, they tend— and all the older population tends to use Kakao Story. So when we do digital media, digital marketing, we do 2 channels. If it's mostly younger generation who speak mostly English, then Facebook. If we're targeting more senior, older people who do not really talk in English, then KakaoStory is better to reach.

And you've 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, um, and Naver used to dominate the market, and they have the downblogging, which a lot of Koreans use. So still it's getting less and less because of Facebook and also the YouTube, but still really, really popular. So when we do digital PR, top 2 vehicle is Facebook and Naver Blog.

Heeseung, 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 people want to find out more about you, Heeseung, how can they find you?

You can reach me via my company homepage. which is www.plisncoms.com, or my LinkedIn page, which is LinkedIn, N-H-E-E-S-A-N-G-Y-O-O.

Heesang Yoo, 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.