Abstract

On the basis that current psychological research into mass media gives more representation to Western than Korean cultures, this project uses Western research theories alongside Korean studies to investigate persuasion techniques in 10 Korean advertisements. If Western psychological research on mass media is valid across cultures, then the concepts, theories, and studies will apply to Korean mass media. The collection includes personal photographs taken in Korea as well as Internet videos of commercials played on Korean television and in New York City’s Times Square. The methodology restricts the samples to subtle advertisements not derived from a Western view of a strange or exotic Korea. The results find instances of peripheral routes of persuasion that use various appeals and tactics related to Western media. This project discusses cross-cultural and cross-border tactics as well as ageism, sexism, and gender roles. The results suggest that while there are differences, Western theories are applicable to Korean mass media; however, the implications emphasise further mass media research from a Korean perspective and an increase of media literacy.

Introduction

A bias contaminates mass media research because investigators mainly perform studies in the West while neglecting Korea. As Korean research increases, a comparative dearth of information persists; therefore, coordinating North American and Korean studies is essential since even a massive 100% sample of North Americans, including Korean immigrants and their offspring, is unrepresentative globally since the sample excludes non-immigrant Koreans living in Korea. This confounding variable skews data so that the data cannot universalise from Canada to Korea.

The still mostly homogenous Korea, once labelled “the hermit kingdom” for having closed borders, offers unique research opportunities. The concept of “Balli balli” (빨리빨리), meaning “quickly quickly”, permeates Korean culture and reflects rapidly changing industrialisation and social movements which have stratified generations with the eldest holding onto tradition and the youngest embracing—even idolizing—contemporary international culture. Historically, impoverished Korea was frugal; however, to slightly generalise, Korea has become a consumer nation obsessed with status, luxury, and designer brands. At the same time, while countries differ, Korea is not absolutely alien from North America.

Investigating Korean advertisements, this project draws on Korean psychological research while relating them to Western studies and fundamental mass media theories. This paper uses 10 Korean advertisements embedded into applicable Western psychological theories for structure. The 10 advertisements include corresponding Western and Korean studies with discussion of persuasion techniques and their ramifications. Moreover, the thematic structure revolves around sexism, gender roles, traditional/contemporary culture, East/West dichotomy, collectivism/individualism, and cross border advertising.

Methodology

Hundreds of hours of both deep and casual conversations with Korean citizens in Korea guide the methods of data collection and give perspective to this project. These conversations, while not a formal aspect of this project, assist understanding of Korea’s history, politics, economy, and social structure providing general notions that focus data collection.

This project focuses on less sensational advertisements that do not have overt controversies while excluding materials that are extremely risqué, racist, or not politically correct. Similarly, this excludes material that is merely ethnocentrically different compared to Western norms. Instead, the collection of data includes advertisements that are subtler and do not stand out from the average commercial. Each commercial choice looks at content that is seemingly innocuous until, like scratching at a palimpsest, the various persuasive and manipulative techniques appear beneath superficial layers of humour, music, celebrities, and so on.

Both the Namu and the Hyundai advertisements are personal photos taken in Korea representing the personal experience of encountering advertisements in public space. Korean as well as international Internet users circulated The Dokdo Island and the Bibimbab widely on the Twitter social network. These two advertisements draw Korean national pride for airing in Times Square and represent advertising diaspora. The Nike, Olleh, Hite, Charm Soju, iPhone, and One Cashing advertisements come from Youtube.com with the search of “Korean Commercials” and “Korean advertisements”; however, the Olleh and Won Cashing also come from multiple and heavily repeated personal Korean television viewing experiences.

Analysis

The Namu advertisement displayed in the high traffic Gangnam subway station relies on a peripheral route of persuasion to change attitudes more favourably towards plastic surgery. Perloff (2008, p. 59) defines an attitude as “a learned, global evaluation of an object (person, place, or issue) that influences thought and action”. When viewing advertisements such as this one for plastic surgery, pedestrians use preformed attitudes from experiences such as seeing before and after photos of alluring celebrities or grotesque mishaps. Individuals compare messages with their initial attitudes and then accept or reject the message. This social judgment theory posits that personal positions are anchored reference points when encountering new messages (Perloff, 2008, p.84-96). Initial attitudes guide future thoughts and actions about plastic surgery.

Next, the Namu advertisement attempts to change these initial attitudes through persuasion, defined as “a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviours regarding and issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice” (Perloff, 2008, p. 17). To convince people to change their attitudes, Namu transmits their message indirectly with superficial mechanisms instead of a direct approach requiring intense mental activity. Namu’s message relies on simple decision-making rules since these heuristics succeed when pedestrians cannot slow down to process a complex message. To elucidate this dual processing, Perloff (2008, p.173-190) explains the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), which differentiates a central from peripheral route for changing attitudes. Instead of using the central route requiring focused attention and cognitive processing, the Namu advertisement persuades through the peripheral route by associating the message with positive values and pleasant images. Namu uses beautiful imagery and associates it to the positive feelings of attractiveness.

For instance, Namu uses two visual metaphors for plastic surgery. The first of a cake-headed woman scribed “Happy ReBirthday to you” suggests a beautiful and young rebirth while the second—perhaps more sinister—attacks self-esteem by comparing the observer to a potato-headed woman peeling off an unattractive skin to become “Small & Smooth”. This exemplifies how advertisers invoke self-consciousness to reduce confidence and then sell their product to escape body image anxiety. The payoff is that these metaphors catch attention creating more interest than would literal language (Perloff, 2008, p.286-290). However, while the metaphor is memorable, it obfuscates the message. An effective message needs clarity or risks losing efficacy. Does Hyundai’s Accent advertisement make the same mistake?

According to Shrimp & Gresham’s 1983 stages of processing theory (as cited in Harris 2004, p.105-107), a message is increasingly successful if targets go through a chain of exposing, attending, comprehending, evaluating, encoding, retrieving, decision-making, and action-taking; therefore, if Hyundai wants their Accent advertisement to succeed, observers must process each stage without disruption, or else overall comprehension or impact suffers.

Hyundai creates exposure with ubiquitous distribution of Accent advertisements that accost pedestrians repeatedly in populated areas such as COEX mall. To maintain attention, a massive display hangs over the main street of Gangnam across from a main bus stop. The advertisement is also easy to comprehend, encode, and then retrieve from long-term memory due to its simple design of mostly black, written in white, minimal colour, and basic logos. Moreover, the English and Korean words are in chunks of two or three. While many older Koreans cannot comprehend the English, bilingual youth have two languages to assist comprehension. These linked stages then help potential customers make a decision and then act to buy the Accent.

While Hyundai alienates some observers, the advertisement targets a specific demographic. The Accent advertisement takes the peripheral route of persuasion by appealing to achievement, success, and power (Harris, 2004, p.102). By championing “Guys Only” and “The true privilege of youth” (진정한 젊음의 특권), the advertisement creates an illusion of exclusion. Hyundai boosts the prestige using sexism and ageism by saying that only young men are allowed to drive this car. Hyundai sacrifices less profitable consumers to persuade a young male demographic. This tempting illusion, however, sells the antidote to its own poison.

Males are not immune to distorted body image. The black atmosphere and the muscled man in the centre of Hyundai’s advertisement create an aura of power; however, they also increase feelings of inadequacy. Advertisements such as Hyundai’s add to body dissatisfaction leading to obsession for desired physiques (Harris, 2004, p.61-62). Likewise, Hargreaves & Tiggemann (2009) investigate men’s responses to muscular-ideal male beauty media images and find evidence that muscular-ideal media lowers men’s muscle satisfaction and physical attractiveness. Hyundai creates inferiority while allowing the observer a vicarious experience by purchasing the Accent.

Similarly, Charm Soju uses charismatic celebrities to sell their product in a sexual climate. The attractive communicators persuade though the peripheral route relying on aesthetics and identification instead of reasoned arguments or credible sources. To explain this further, the Yale attitude change approach focuses on the interplay among the message, the channel, the source, and the target of the message (Parloff, 2008, p.169-245). In this approach, an observer evaluates a communicator upon the characteristics of authority, credibility, and social attractiveness. An authority figure may gain compliance; however, they may not necessarily persuade the audience. A credible communicator is more likely to get an audience to internalise a message while an attractive communicator may be more likely to influence through identification. Soju is a bitter alcohol with few health benefits, but it does cause euphoria; therefore, attractive celebrities fair better than would authorities or credible advocates to associate the product with fun times.

The Charm Soju advertisement demonstrates how sex, humour, and music distract attention away from unappealing aspects of the message and product to create susceptibility to persuasion (Parloff, 2008, p.169-245). Soju has numerous detrimental associations including, but not limited to, alcohol poisoning, drunken driving, aggression, and awkward social mistakes; therefore, Charm Soju diverts attention and reframes Soju positively. The Charm Soju sequence plays on the trope of alcohol making people appear more attractive creating a humorously awkward blind date. In reality, this situation has social consequences full of shame and guilt. Humour defuses this negative reality alongside sexy dancing and music. In the Charm Soju advertisement, celebrity Son Dam Bi, sings a catchy song that will help people remember Charm Soju—perhaps for a lifetime.

Catchy music is powerfully persuasive. The payday loan company, Won Cashing, epitomises the popular technique of repeating a tune with hooks and lyrics that promote the product. This jingle repeatedly broadcasts in wide distribution until it is completely exhausted. Unfortunately, this technique is effective because music is an efficient memory cue and the melody gives another retrieval route besides words (Harris, 2004, p.185-186). Similarly, in a 1999 study, Hahn & Hwang, find evidence that tempo and familiarity of background music in advertising influence Korean university students’ information processing. Won Cashing distils catchy music, silly choreographing, famous celebrities such as Choi Seung Ah, and repetitive airing to make a series of commercials that annoy viewers, but drill the message into viewer memory. Audiences might hate the advertisement; however, they cannot forget it.

Following the trend of sex, humour, and music, the 20-second sequence of Hite’s S beer commercial begins with escalating music and a close up side view of an attractive woman turning her head with wide surprised eyes. The camera cuts slightly panning to a mid close up three shot of females in bikinis. As they turn their attention behind them, one turns unnaturally sticking out her chest. The camera cuts first to a mid close up of a female in a silver bikini looking into the distance with envy and then cuts to a composition of green trees and bushes surrounding a full shot of a strutting woman in a green bikini. This green atmosphere contrasts the colder lighter colours of the other three women. The camera cuts back to a reaction shot of the first female looking at the female in green with a cross between lasciviousness and jealousy. Next, the camera jumps back to a mid full shot of the woman in green and then quickly to a three shot of the women whom all stare cattishly. Following is a cut back to a full side-view dolly shot of the female in green. The composition is of the woman in green standing parallel to a palm tree and strutting along a pool and clouded blue sky while holding a case of green beer. The camera angle looks up from a low position creating an illusion emphasising the woman’s long legs. This shot cathartically relieves the tension with a humorous twist revealing that the beer was the cause of envy. The effect of this is to transfer the affective component of desire towards the beer. The beer symbolizes status of ownership and power helping self-actualisation (Harris, 2004, p.96-99). The humour appeal takes full advantage of audio-visual language mixing music, body language, and composition assisting the power appeal to grab attention and create positive feelings (Harris, 2004, p.102). The camera cuts to a mid full shot of the female in green holding the green bottle in the centre of the composition while walking past the three women whom turn away acting nonchalant. This effect gives the message that the possessor of this beer draws envy from peers. In fact, this emphasis of standing out from the crowd is an exception to Han and Shavitt’s 1994 study (as cited in Harris, 2004, p.99) of how U.S. advertisements emphasise individual benefits and pleasures while Korean advertisements emphasise collective benefits.

Next, the camera cuts to an extreme close up of two green bottles lifting out of ice with synchronous sound of refreshing ice. This audio-visual combination demonstrates classical conditioning. The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) of an ice sound causes an unconditioned response (UCR) of thirst in the same ways as the smell of food triggers salivation. The shot pairs the UCS with the conditioned stimulus (CS) of the green bottles creating a conditioned response (CR) of thirst. Later, viewers may associate their thirst with the green bottle or brand while shopping. Moreover, the attractive women act as an UCS that triggers the UCR of arousal in viewers. The women as an UCS pair with the CS of beer. Once paired, the beer, as a CS, elicits a conditioned response CR leading to arousal when the viewer sees the beer (Harris, 2004, p.113-115). This type of classical conditioning uses sex to sell through sexual arousal (Harris, 2004, p.292-293).

In addition, Harris suggests that people can be classically conditioned to evoke sexual arousal to stimuli not naturally responded to and that the degree of explicitness is not always correlated with arousal; people are often aroused by a less explicit story—a mere suggestion or innuendo might trigger arousal. In the Hite commercial, the camera gets a reaction shot of three females looking longingly after the female in green and then exclamation marks appear. The depth of field rack focuses from the middle female to outer female. From the point of view of the three women, there is a mid full shot of the female in green and two half naked men hitting bottles together in cheers and a still full case of S Beer on table in centre of screen. These shots of bikini women and half naked men are not only suggestive, but also appeal to the affective part of attitudes. They associate the beer to good times and friends of the opposite sex suggesting this beer attracts social admiration and provokes a sense that the individual looks good with the product (Harris, 2004, p.96-99). Lastly, a male voice over says “Stylish Beer, exfeel S”. Using English in a Korean advertisements function as status trigger. In one study, Lee (2006) finds evidence that English in Korean commercials adds an affect of modernity in contemporary Korea. The Stylish Beer advertisement is wordless until the English voice over. English usage appeals to status and a younger demographic.

Korean Nike Ad

As Korea opens their market to international companies while also struggling to keep their own culture, international advertisers must incorporate Korean culture into their advertisements. Nike, having no national loyalty of its own, spreads its brand by associating itself with the culture and national pride of the target country. Nike persuades peripherally by piggybacking on fierce Korean patriotism. For instance, Nike uses footage of Park Ji Sung, a hero of Korea’s world cup victory, kicking a goal and cheering. This segment classically conditions the Nike brand (CS) to Korean feelings of pride from the world cup victory (UCS). Park Ji Sung and the crowd’s expressions spread and affect the viewer through ‘emotional contagion’ causing the individual to non-consciously mimic and synchronise behaviour (Harris, 2004, p.154). Nike takes advantage of audience hero worship for sports stars and connects the positive feelings to the brand; charismatic heroes funnel trust and reputation (Harris, 2004, p.175).

The sequence opens with fast-paced beat music and a man with a Nike swoosh on his shirt doing bike stunts. This music connects to a young audience while the loud beats stand out from quieter commercials and are not only effective in capturing attention, but also in inciting arousal. Music assists in memorization; however, music has many other uses and gratifications such as increasing arousal and pleasant emotions which transfer onto the product (Harris, 2004, p.180-181). Perhaps being the two strongest, music and sport effectively hook emotions (Harris, 2004, p.152). Sports and music affect both components of emotion: the physiological and the cognitive. Our bodily state and our cognitive appraisal of that state produce the emotions that we feel.

The fast cutting of short consecutive shots provides abundant visual information while implying chaotic energy. This constant fast cutting keeps arousal high to match the music while montaging keeps the narrative together as the camera cuts from the bike trickster to break-dancers and then to the famous Korean celebrity, Boa, dancing with other women against a painted blue-clouded sky. The commercial continues fast cutting to Park Ji Sung, basketball players, golfer Michelle Wie wearing a hat with a Nike Swoosh, a tae kwon do martial artist with the Nike swoosh on her chest and head gear, a soccer player, and an out of place non-Korean basketball player, Lebron James, aggressively shouting. Finally, the camera cuts back to the bike trickster, a “just do it” slogan, and then Nike’s notorious swoosh. To keep the energetic rhythm and tempo while invoking positive feelings, the commercial embeds Korean words: 창조하라 (create), 느껴라 (Feel), 믿어라 (Believe), 표현하라 (express), 전념하라 (concentrate), 맞서라 (Stand against), and 외쳐라 (shout). As discussed before, metaphors assist in message memorization and create positive feelings. Metaphoric and symbolic imagery such as pigeons flying around the biker, blue skies behind dancers, and the red dusk sky behind a soccer player weave through the commercial. During this commercial, there is no advertised product; instead, Nike is selling a brand.

While U.S. companies advertise in Korea, so to does Korea advertise in the U.S. The popular Korean comedy troupe, Infinity Challenge (무한도전), created ‘The Taste of Korea’ commercial which aired in Times Square (Choi, 2010). This Korean advertisement displayed for U.S. audiences, uses fast-paced synchronous music with quickly changing visuals and bright colours. Each element is coordinated to synchronise dancing with preparing bibimbab—a traditional Korean dish. This mixing creates synaesthesia that emphasises the idea of harmony that the slogan “Taste the harmony” pronounces. This idea of harmony is demonstrative of collectivist culture. Koreans tend to better receive commercials depicting ideals of collectivism while United Statians prefer individualist advertisements. Korean viewers prefer products with collectivist appeals and U.S. viewers prefer individualist appeals (Paik, 1995).

Similarly, in another study, researchers compare individualism-collectivism, time orientation, relationship with nature, and contextuality in U.S. as well as South Korean commercials (Cho, Kwon, Gentry, Jun, & Kropp, 1999). Both countries, according to the data, are present-time oriented with individualism more dominant in U.S. commercials and collectivism more dominant in South Korean commercials. The results also show that Korean commercials use more metaphors and stressed oneness-with-nature while U.S. commercials are more direct. The Infinity Challenge commercial exemplifies collectivism, metaphor, and oneness-with-nature.

While Infinity Challenge introduces traditional Korean culture to international audiences, the commercial makes the mistake of furthering gender stereotypes: women are dancers and musicians while the males not only dance and play music, but are also chefs and martial artists. This works contrary to both contemporary and traditional societies where females have been chefs and martial artists.

Another Korean Times Square advertisement, amongst debate, advocates that the island of Dokdo is a part of Korea (Kim, 2010). Japanese and Korean campaigns focus on the Dokdo Island (독도) or Takeshima (たけしま/竹島) dispute to persuade local and international audiences over island ownership. Each side of the dispute claims the other claims are propaganda. Is the Dokdo Times Square advertisement propaganda?

Perloff (2008, p.33) differentiates propaganda from persuasion with four components. First, propaganda uses mass influence through mass media. Second, propaganda is covert. Third, propaganda is under total control over the transmission of information. Fourth, propaganda has a negative connotation. The Dokdo advertisement uses both a peripheral route and central route of persuasion that do not have the components of propaganda as Perloff (2008, p.33) puts forth. This Dokdo commercial occurs in mediated settings that has interpersonal and organisational contexts; it was organised by a Korean PR expert Seo Kyoung Duk and Korean singer Kim Jang Hoon (Kim, 2010). While the commercial spreads its political message under the guise of a tourist advertisement, the commercial is not covert; the creators and intentions are well publicised. The organisers also do not have total control over the transmission of information. Lastly, since Dokdo is a controversial issue, different groups will subjectively claim this commercial should have the negative connotation of propaganda.

While Perloff’s definition of propaganda may not apply, the techniques are not innocuous. Seo and Kim frame the issue by centrally organising the idea of Dokdo as similar to Hawaii, Sicilia, and Bali so that the relevant events are salient and promoted according to the agenda (Perloff, 2008, p.292-293). For international audiences who are unaware of the controversy, this framing forms the initial schemas that guide construction of later information (Harris, 2004, p.35-39). While Dokdo is a serious topic in Korea, Western audiences are mostly unaware; therefore, this information appeal (Harris, 2004, p.96) absent of the Japanese version effectively constructs the notion that the Island is Korean instead of Japanese. Western audiences are likely to be apathetic over the issue; however, the commercial peripherally starts changing attitudes—later, those exposed to the message recall the information encoded from the commercial.

Those with political agendas are not the only ones guilty of framing information to fit into existing schemas. Advertisers often frame their product within a certain context familiar to our schemas—such as family situations. The Korean iPhone commercial embeds its product into a family narrative that is both easy to understand and emotional.

To Louis Armstrong’s oft-repeated song “What a Wonderful World”, iPhone and KT Olleh follow the trend of stereotyping an elderly woman as the motherly flat character. Older people, when represented in commercials, are often family such as grandparents (Harris, 2004, p.81). Even though United Statian women make most purchases of goods and services, they are underrepresented as main characters in commercials except for health and beauty products (Ganahl, Prinsen, & Netzley, 2003). Women are not only underrepresented and stereotyped in Western media, but also Korean. Kim & Lowry‘s 2005 study reveals that women are often portrayed as young, dependent, children nurturing, and homebound. Korean television is lagging behind and does not reflect modern female roles. Furthermore, Lee, Kim, & Han’s (2006) South Korea and U.S. cross-cultural analysis showed that older people play major roles more in Korean commercials than United Statian. Also, commercials in the U.S. depict older people more negatively than in Korea. Still, underrepresentation and stereotyping remain a problem in Korea and the U.S. advertisements. This commercial uses a peripheral route using an emotional appeal of family. The positive feelings of family transfer to the iPhone product.

KT, the telecommunications company in partnership with iPhone, has successfully branded Olleh into the minds of many Korean children whom model the commercial and shout “Olleh!” in victory. Olleh has four meanings: ‘hello’ reversed, ‘come’, ‘olle’ meaning “new road” or “small road” in Jeju dialect, and ‘ole’ the bullfighting exclamation (Olleh, 2011). The Olleh commercial uses this catchy slogan repeatedly throughout a variety of humorous commercials. The repetition helps increase memorization. Olleh uses a series of different humorous sequences with the same ending of ‘Olleh’; therefore, it is less likely to be worn out quickly.

Unfortunately, surreptitious sexism lurks beneath the humour. One scene plays on a Korean fairy tale in which a boy is rewarded for honesty with three expensive axes. The Olleh version objectifies women as rewards by presenting three ladies holding the golden axes and showing their legs. In another, Olleh uses a stereotypical “gold-digger” whom leaves a younger rich man for a dying rich man. Similarly, Olleh is sexist against males. Harris (2004, p.62) mentions that male gender roles are skewed in advertising e.g., friendship, intimacy, and domestic roles. The Olleh advertisement depicts men as a group seeking escape from their family roles instead of being caring fathers and husbands valuing family time.

Conclusion

In sum, while this project covers only ten advertisements, these examples demonstrate that Korean advertisements use Western persuasion techniques; therefore, further Korean research would prove valuable. For instance, Individualism and English in Korean advertisements reflects a quickly changing Korea and has unknown effects on the Korean population. Currently, many Koreans have positive affects for Western culture, yet non-superficial effects of English usage are likely present in Korean mass media. Without intention, this project includes 10 advertisements that use English.

Furthermore, a Canadian investigation has the merit of an etic view of an objective outsider looking into Korean culture; however, this project lacks an emic view that draws from a subjective Korean experience. Emersion into Korean culture gives this project nuances otherwise lost, yet this is not without limitation. Unrefined understanding of the Korean language and culture hinders understanding of the advertisements; however, it removes some linguistic distraction from other visual and audial language.

Moreover, many advertisements rely not only on spoken language, but also communicate through schemas. These multiple avenues help international audiences understand the sentiment of Korean tradition even with a language barrier. This project uses contemporary social lenses to scrutinise the Korean advertisements for practices such as sexism or ageism; however, while some of the advertisements may seem politically incorrect to Western audiences, even Canada has its own sexist advertising with which to combat. One aim of this project is to reveal unnoticed aspects of social injustice in Korean advertising while minimising ethnocentrism.

Lastly, to reveal the importance of media literacy, this project focuses on 10 advertisements that persuade peripherally using indirect messages and appeals. These tactics manipulate our every day choices through vulnerable exploits. Media literacy, therefore, would reduce detrimental effects while raising awareness of the covert assault on our senses. Advertising need not be dishonest; however, as long as media illiteracy persists, advertisers will continue taking advantage of easy targets.

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Translator: Yhee Jung Eun