Korea… Not Too Sparkly After All
It remains to be seen how Korea plans to overcome its branding hurdles. Suffice it to say, I don’t think alot of people are all too upset that the current slogan, “Korea, Sparkling”, may soon be scrapped. Says Euh Yoon-dae, Presidential Council chairman on National Branding:
The vast majority of experts expressed consistently negative views about the slogan. They said it sounded like a brand name for carbonated or sparkling water, not a catchy tourism slogan.
No argument there. In my opinion, Korea needs to stick to one campaign and run with it rather than changing it all the time to keep it “fresh”. All this will end up doing is confusing visitors.
UPDATE: I posted this very same topic on The Marmot’s Hole the other day. It generated some decent and some not so decent remarks.
Absolutely. The visual behind that does a very good job in illustrating what Korea is all about, and why people come here in the first place. The whole campaign is spinning its wheels if they think going in a different direction will do the trick. I really think it won’t. So many people I have met here agree that Korea should do far more with what they have instead of blindly going ahead in marketing what they think might be appealing to the foreign eye.
Absolutely! Hell, I’m even amazed when I go places here in Korea and show locals more about the sights than even they knew about.
Possibly. Yet, that slogan was devised more from a city standpoint. They’d really have to stretch it to make it work for Korea as a whole. As for Seoul global promotion, I am involved with the team behind that. There will be some significant creative changes over the next several months.
For sure it would be a stretch, but perhaps using the theme of the “Land of the Morning Calm” would be more fitting.
I can’t wait for that to be scrapped. It’s a horrible brand. I think expanding the “Seoul, Soul of Asia” brand would serve them much better.
I know. I’m not a fan of that one. Not sure how it ever made it that far in the discussion committee to be honest.
“Miraculous” Korea?
For God’s sake!!!
I agree with the second part of your argument – the focus should not be based solely on the slogan itself. However, this has more to do with creating an inviting image for tourists in general rather than merely relying on what foreigners may think of Korea from abroad. It is the tourism industry after all.
I don’t think the KTA is thinking about bringing tourists, but about the image of Korea abroad when a customer buys a Korean product. People are not going to come here just because of a slogan, regardless of how good it is.