As I arrived in Seoul, South Korea, I excitedly updated my status on Facebook. A good friend commented: "Welcome to, apparently, the land of luxury goods! (You should feel at home.)" I assume his quip was meant in regard to DMD's client roster of luxury brands, and hopefully not my personal spending habits. Take note, though, that he doesn't mention the many South Korean designers that have emerged in the last decade in product, fashion, graphics and arts. I had done a bit of my own research before arriving and was excited to experience a place of new designs, but upon arriving was most surprised by, indeed, the overwhelming amount of luxury stores. In fact, the story of luxury eclipsed a more interesting story underneath Korea's successes.

Behind the luxury is a country that has not experienced the recession in the severe manner of other countries. In fact, it has been in the enviable position of increasing GDP strongly in the last twenty years, with only minor bumps in the road, and socially has largely removed malnutrition and other social ills.

McKinsey Quarterly has published a book with the South Korean government entitled "Korea 2020: Global Perspectives for the Next Decade," published by Random House Korea. One of the essay's is by Christopher Graves (password needed) on the national brand. He makes the point, wisely, that South Korea suffers from a brand deficit: shadowed by Japan its designers are unknown, and its largest brands, Samsung and LG, are perceived in the US are also seen as Japanese.

Three of his four recommendations focus on design: "Find, capture, and retell the stories of South Korean designers", "Create a living design experience, a design theme park", "Create a global design award".

All solid, good, public relations recommendations: yet, I wonder if this would be an uphill battle. My friend's quip about luxury would remain unchanged, and the recall of LG and Samsung would probably still tilt towards Japan. Perhaps their greatest story, I am seeing here, might be their economic and social success. Exporting their business and social thinking prowess could be a beacon in the US where there is an intense soul-searching on how our financial and social institutions failed and a aspirational story for developing countries.

I am normally a fan of a design focus brand push: but in this case the larger story is the structure, thinking and humanity that has made South Korea most successful. Finding a way to export that mindset may be their greatest brand asset.

Posted by rowland
on May 6 at 10:52 PM more...

This recent McKinsey Quarterly (subscription) brought to light some interesting research on the problems for brand management within Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Synopsis: brand functions are too fragmented with managers spending up to 85% of time in meetings, rather than executing, with often confusing and poorly defined roles and reporting structures. Interestingly, the article notes that social media has shifted the balance for CPG companies. This has been said by many before, but that it gets quoted by McKinsey makes it now all the more important to take note.

What this report fails to mention, however, is the role of managing external resources such as agencies. It does point out that increasingly global brand management means global marketing efforts and single-message ad campaigns. But, if you start to list the agencies needed to manage the expanding brand eco-system: interactive, social media, public relations, design, packaging, advertising, direct and media planning agencies have to take up a good chunk of that meeting time.

Which begs the question of integration. One agency? Multiple agencies? Our solution has been right down the middle as a collection of microagencies: what other management solutions are there? Even within the "large" agency structure you have to create mutiple points of contact within a large CPG company, how does this work? Interested to hear and learn more.

Posted by rowland
on April 12 at 11:50 AM more...