Korean Job Discussion Forums

[venus]

Anyone seen the 'Korea - Sparkling' advert on the Discovery Channel yet?

Why oh why do they have to continually let themselves down...?

The ad evokes NOTHING about Korea whatsoever!

A few paltry unrelated images, edited together too quickly in a muddled, confusing montage that says nothing at all and doesn't in the slightest represent Korea nor does it present to the person who knows nothing of korea an image of a country anyone would ever want to vist nor find out anything about...!

I mean honestly, this is the best they could do?!!!

What, did they think 'right we want to finally promote tourism in Korea, using a global media outlet watched by millions and let the world see what Korea has to offer to make people want to visit here... I know, lets get a three year old child with no production experience whatsoever to edit together the comercial!'

I mean WTF??? I am stunned that this is the best production they can come up with!

Compare it to the 'Malaysia Truly Asia' Campaing or the 'Incredible India;' the 'Uniquely Singapore'... even the Taiwan one was better....

Korea's problems are two-fold. A hastilly written but genuine reflection of my feelings regarding Korea follows....

Firstly, their ideas about foriegners are based purely on assumptions and not actuallity. They do not have a realistic idea of us and despite having had the opportunity to, they will not take anything we say about ourselves on board outside of the way they want to see us and continue along with their outmoded assumptions. Thus they are trying to interact with a people they do not know nor understand and refuse to understand and thus miss the mark when they try to attract us to their country.

Secondly, they also have a mythical, unrealistic view of themselves and also of the way outsiders view them. And of course even if they are told this - they will not listen to it or change their views. They end up thinking they've given us what we want and presented themselves the way they wanted and even though they failed on both accounts, they'll not realise this and pat themselves on the back and accept their own idealized evaluations of the experience...

So sollipsistic.

They should let a foriegner make their tourism ads. What does Korea have to offer that other countries don't? Don't try to promote it as a beach destination because it will never compare to S.E Asia. Don't try too hard to promote it as a thriving Asian Metropolis becuase sadly H.K, Singapore and Tokyo are going to win out every time...

No, but do include some scenes of Hongdae / Sinchon / Insadong etc and juxtapose them with the mystical, the quiet, the things Korea really does have that are unique...

Images of the Seokharam (sp) Bulguksa (thought of as the most quintessential examples of Buddhist art in all of East Asia by experts) the tea fields... the Namdaemun, some shots of the Palaces and some views from Seoraksan....

People should be offered the image of Korea as an unexplored, mystical place where one can get away from modernity one moment yet be out drinking and dancing amidst the vibrant, youthful enrgy of Downtown Seoul the next....

It's sad. Watching Korea continually fail to misunderstand the outside world; the way the outside world percieves them; and ultimately even seemingly missunderstand or at least be in denial of their real selves is like watching a very eager child you really want to succeed, continualy fail and fail....

It reminds me of the past weekend. My Korean ladyfriend and I were out with her sister and brother in-law and their two delightful daughters who thankfully have not had their 'Koreanness' driven into them too much just yet and are thus like normal, human little girls....

We were hiking and walking along some stunning cliffs down at Yeosu... I would have had a great time but the brother-in-law must have thought he was impressing me by rambling on about the things I was seeing and how beautiful they were etc... (even telling me how to walk up a mountain, the correct f*cking breathing and foot positioning for f*cks sake) Of course, I just wanted to be able to experience and appraise the trip for myself rather than be suffocated by his culture....

All the while I'm thinking along the lines of 'if an artist has to stand by his painting at the exhibition and tell everyone to look at it and tell them how beautiful it is, it probably isn't a good painting... if people wont come to it by themselves, feel drawn to it and praise it volluntarily, it's probably not good.'

That's Korea's problem... they wont just shut the *beep* up and let you make your own mind up... they're like children.... If only Korean men (I find when men aren't around, the woman let go of the whole 'Koreaness' thing to an extent...) could calm down and not be overzealous teenagers.... just have normal conversations instead of waffling on sollipsistically about their 'culture' all the time, they'd give a much better impresson of themselves.

As it is they're trying to impress but don't realise it's having the opposite effect and only ends up annoying and making them look immature, insecure and unaware. They sit there satisfied that they have impressed a positive impression of Korea on you when in actuallity, all they have done is annoyed you; ignored you; insulted your intelligence and made themselves look like childish idiots who have no idea of how other people really see them! They only seemed to have pleased themselves! Of course, they never even realise this and don't realise that we see straight through them and on the contrary, both they and their culture are not such a huge mystery to us...

Gah!

[RACETRAITOR]

I actually know a couple people in that ad, the Rock Tigers. Chances are if I ridiculed them for being in that ad they wouldn't care, but I will continue to do so.

[spliff]

I real PR balls up....the producers of that ad suck!

[Saxiif]

[venus]

[mehamrick]

They should have taken a hint from the city doing the Winter Olympic ad. That is a pretty well put together ad. It shows more about Korea than the current one running.

[ajgeddes]

You know, my view on the commercial is that it is a very well made commercial, but not at advertising for Korea. It is kind of interesting, but in the end it leaves you thinking "what the hell was that?"

Let's see, here's what Korea has to offer from the commercial:
-Breakdancers
-Trains
-Bridges
-Old men with Cell phones
-A lot of red t-shirts Okay, okay but anybody that doesn't know Korea already has no idea what that is about.
-Some guy who can't pronounce sparkling.
-Nightlife
-And some people wearing old clothes using swings and jumping on a rope.

To me, this is terrible advertising for Korea. That's what Korea has to offer? What country doesn't have that to offer? To top it all off, it seems nearly 100% of the commercial is about Seoul and not Korea. Korea has a lot to offer and sadly, none of it made it into this commercial.

[Dev]

I agree with the previous post. If you want to make Korea look attractive, then show beautiful parts of it like Busan, jeju or somewhere in the countryside not dirty noisy Seoul.

[Octavius Hite]

Just on a side note, the "Incredible India" thing is a total joke. Its a great ad for one of the shiiiiiitiest countries I have ever been too. The Brits should have tried harder.

[NQtropics]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aymdSBmaSdQ

[Satori]

The OP is very well observed, unfortunately.

[passport220]

[happeningthang]

I don't see the problem. It's an ad doing what an ad is supposed to do. Make things seem better than they really are so you'll want to buy (into) it. Is India really that incredible? Is Malaysia truly asian?
Does Pepsi really make you 'more happy'? It's all bollocks.

To me it sounds like the OP has his own justifiable issues with Korea and is projecting a tad onto the ad. So it doesn't push what he thinks is Korea's strongest points, but let's keep in mind they're trying to accomplish a lot in 30 seconds.

It starts quiet and melancholoy with the "mystic" tree thing, old traditional values with the guy on the boat, and went on to push the idea Korea's a place that combines tradition with modern life - hence old hanbok guys on fast trains with sattelite TV mobile phones. I thought it did it pretty well.

[pest2]

I saw it on Discovery channel for the first time a few nights ago... The commercial doesnt reveal where/what the place it is advertising is until the very end. I was watching it and I totally thought it was an ad for Japan for the first 3/4 of it. Finally, at the end, it hit me it was an ad for a place I've spent 2.5 years of my life... Say what ever you want about it, but the place in that ad is not the reality of Korea... but then again, given what is true about Korea and perception vs reality, is that so surprising?

[superacidjax]