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Drop, drop, drop. The sound of dropping water is being heard. The scene of a small fountain and a bare tree comes onto the screen. At that moment, a girl wearing a white dress walks towards the fountain and sinks slowly into the water. Then, suddenly, the leaves and fruits begin to grow on the leafless tree. The scene then shows a close-up of the girl. She has big and pure eyes, and we watch she takes a bite out of an apple. In the background, some words are heard, “011 of twenty years old, TTL.” This is the storyline of one famous advertisement. Like this, looking at the advertisements of today, we can see that there are a lot of advertisements which try to convey the image of products. These image advertisements rarely show the product itself, so customers can hardly have a grasp of the product at all. This is different than the past advertisements which adhered to carrying direct information of the product such as its function or quality. That is, the present advertisements denote the image very sensitively in order to make the customers just feel it. This trend came up with the development of the technology, which made it possible that there is now no strict distinction among qualities of products. Therefore, it is hard for customers to find the criterion for deciding which products to buy. In this circumstance, the image advertisement is the solution and some kind of stream in marketing business that gives some discriminative character at the product. However, Korean advertisements of the past had very different features from those of today, since the advertisements of Korea have been changed according to the circumstances of the times. Then, let? take a view of how they have been changed and in what aspects they have been effected by society with representative advertisements of each time.

Retrospection of the Past Advertisement

Advertising of Korea began with the advertisement of one Dutch trading company which was printed in “Hansung Weekly News” on February 22, 1886. After that, under the rule of Japanese imperialism, the solitary Korean newspaper, “The Korea Daily News” became the prevalent means for advertising. During the transition period from iron rule to cultural governing, Saito, the third governor of Chosun, invented a new kind of political advertisement that used posters and newspapers. His objective was to build up public knowledge of his successful governing. In the latter half of the rule of Japanese imperialism, there came out a few new means of advertising. These included newspapers such as Chosun, Dong-a and Kukmin Il-bo, as well as a magazine and a radio broadcasting. Within these mass media methods, there were even several columns about the importance of advertisement. For instance, Chosun and Dong-a Il-bo published articles which contained a theory of advertisement in serial form. It is from the Liberation of 1945 to 1969 that the real development of Korean advertisement began. While the Korean society were going through the upheavals such as the foundation of the Republic of Korea, the division of the Korean penninsula, the 6·25 war and the restoration period after that, the private commercial advertisements popped up through the use of printing and electronic media. The advent of television, which was provided from the end of the 1960s, became a great turning point in Korean advertisement. This coupled with a growth in international advertisement as demonstrated by the emergence of foreign advertisements like Coca Cola, and Pepsi. Furthermore, during this period, medicine advertisements were at a height of prosperity. This was because the government strongly supported the demand for domestic medicines, with the law protecting domestic medicines against imported ones. The names of medicines such as Wongiso, Biobita, Festal that began to be advertised during this time are still familiar today. Since the 1970s, advertising developed rapidly as a result of political and economical changes. In the political field, the government under President Park had a very strict policy toward the resisting mood of the nation in the latter half of the 1970s. The field of advertisement was unexceptionally effected by this social mood. On July 1st, 1976, the law related to examining the advertisements on TV and strict investigation about commercial broadcasting were enacted, which were increasingly reinforced with every passing year. As a result, all advertisements had to be tinged with some character of public good under the “standard for healthy life of nation”. In other words, the advertisement had to include public slogans by sparing certain times. Some examples of this kind of slogan in advertisements are: “There is no tree without roots, there is no saving without economy”, “Let? find virtue by saving money rather than by overspending.” When expression for public good was omitted in the advertisement, it was impossible to broadcast it. In the economic field, the Korean economy was growing at an exceptional rate. The structure of industry was transformed to a heavy-chemical industry and became more export-oriented. Through a chain reaction, demand for Korean products increased significantly as private consumption increased. Under this situation, the increment of competition among the manufactures of similar products created the problem of; “How to concentrate consumers?interest in their products”. From this time on, expressing certain images and having particular ideas through the advertisement made the customer have strong feelings and a graphic image of the product so that they never forget it. Yet, the serious competition caused by this trend seems to have bore bad effects on advertising. These ranged from unbelievable information, to inflammatory expressions and even to the usage of indecent language. In these circumstances, advertisements got to a point where they needed more creative ideas. In other words, they had to pursue the imagination and use emotional images, rather than detail and the direct delivery of information. This trend is well shown in the copies of food and fashion advertisements like “Ottogi Curry on Sunday”, “Shake it, Sunnyten”, “Walk pretty, Kerry Brok”. During the 1980s, the Korean economy experienced exceptional growth in export due to the remunerative international background and rich labours provided with the lowest price. Futhermore, a new culture of family, which was activated by divided families, was formed. This affected the consumption and behaviors of them. Politically, after the assassination of President Park in 1979, Korean society was very confused. In these uneasy political circumstances, the 5th republic with President Chon, and the 6th republic with President Noh succeeded it. The illegitimate government was aware that they had to shift people? interests away from politics and on to new things. The appearance of color television was very useful in achieving this, and thus the popularization of television was advanced very quickly. According to the book, “The Korean advertisements” which was published by “Korea Advertising Society”, it is written: ‘People were escaping from the old color blindness and started to strongly feel the color. As a result of this, the producers of advertisements had to give a lot more thought to design. And advertisements required not only the informative message, but also emotional image pictures. New techniques were developed to achieve this, including detail and various patterns of lights, and a refined sense of how to make the particular image.’ The Olympics, which were held in 1988, had a great effect on advertisement as well. After Seoul was decided as the place for the 1988 Olympiad, advertisements came to have a more Korean theme. We can easily see this trend in the advertisements such as “the spirit of the craftsman” of Sunkyung in 1983, “Ppungmul play” of Daewoo in 1987, and “usage of the Kayagum” of Maxim Coffee in 1988. As foreign cultures flowed into Korea after the Seoul Olympics, however, many advertisements pursuing foreign value appeared. For example, the advertisement of “Chicle gum of the Haetae”, which won the first prize at the television advertisements’ competition, sang, “Chichy, Chichy, Chichy... The new age of Chicle gum, soft base, enchanting fragrance of Juicy, Chicle Mint. There are Haetae Chicle gum even in America, the original place of gum.” In this advertisement, we can see exotic Mexican girls are using more foreign words than Korean words. Besides, foreign advertisements and products after the Seoul Olympics brought about competition among the domestic advertising market. From a social view point, the youth market appeared during this period as well. The appearance of color television, the removal of curfews and school uniforms aroused many changes in the structure of the Korean market place. This stimulated the sensitive young generation? desire for consumption. The youth market began with sports shoes like Nike, which advertised itself with the copy of, “Who wears Nike?” When adolescents formed a new group of consumers, advertisers started to chase emotional and characteristic advertising, rather than logical or common ones. In addition to that, since the end of the 1980s, computer technology has been used with many new materials for film.

The Trends of the Present Advertisement

The advertisements from the 1990s have had their own set of trends just as has been apparent in the past. First of all, from 1991 to 1995, there were a lot of changes and reformations in Korean society. Politically, a new government started in 1993 that was made through election by the people? free will. Economically, the law forced the use of real names in accounts. Furthermore, as a result of the opening of the domestic market to the world, the market of advertisement was opened up as well. In cultural aspects, some restrictions of the law related to mass media like the newspaper, broadcasting, and publication, became a little relaxed, so a large amount of mass media explosively increased. Not only the domestic mass culture of movies and music, but also foreign one became popular. Moreover, the foundation of SBS, cable television and a local broadcasting station progressed quickly. These opened mood in society effected the consciousness of the new generation which had a totally different mind compared with the elder generation. Looking at the aforementioned dispositions in the 1990s, we can see that the Korean advertisements have some new trends in four respects. First, Korean advertisements took the great of interest in Korean creativeness. In fact, this trend appeared a little in the latter half of the 1980s, as it was effected by the Olympics. However, advertisements following western value grew more and more after this period. Therefore, Korean advertisements reflected on western-oriented trends from the early stages of the 1990s, and started to find creative Korean talent. Consequently, Korean advertisements have been oriented toward the subject of the spirit and consciousness of Korea. For example, there are the advertisements such as “Dasida” that emphasizes the taste of hometown, and the use of slogans like “I want to meet warm-hearted people” which emphasizes Korean humanism. Lee In-gu, a copywriter that wrote “Searching for Korean voices” which is an advertisement for Daewoo, said in his column, ‘Beyond the simple act of advertising, this advertisement did a great job in finding the nature, life, and tradition of Korea that has been forgotten by modern people.’ Second, there have been an increasing number of advertisements of the Chaebol? enterprises themselves. These enterprises had to show some kind of appeasing gestures to the new government that was started in 1993, as this government had a new sense of value. Therefore, the advertisements of these companies had some type of public good messages or global standpoint ideals. This disposition is demonstrated in the advertisement “Father, Cheer up...Samsung is changing” by Samsung, “Tankism, management of the world” by Daewoo, and “Hyundae of technology, Hyundae of the world” by Hyundae. With the aforementioned reason, Chung Man-soo, a professor in the Dept. of Public Relations at Sookmyung Womens University, explained this trend; “It is difficult for companies to advertise all of their products, so they are pursuing the angle of advertising the whole company in order to save money.” Third, the new generations have been growing up as the influential customers in the Korean market. In the first half of the 1990s, they showed up with very strong thoughts about their emotional desires and personal characters, which is the reason why they are being called, “X-Generation”. In the latter half of the 1990s, the Net-generation emerged who is very familiar with computer networks and cyberspace. As their social position and economic abilities become larger and larger, advertisers have been trying to invent new expressive ways to attract them. The use of various forms of digital advertisements like movies and animations has been quite effective. Besides these, companies are also delivering information through computer advertisements, the digital market, games, and various other events. These advertisements hint at the special mood and sense of expression that the X-Generation has. Some good examples of this self-centered ideology can be found in the advertisements; “I am X-Generation, It? me that knows about me”, “Can? interrupt me”, “I hate to hear that I am similar to other people.” Kim Hong-Tact, a member of Cheil Communications Inc., said, “Under the post-modernism cultures, the new generations who have different emotions, have a strong enough foundation to accept unprecedented advertisements. This can be proven by the fact that the advertisement like the 002 of Dacom, which was performed by Chun Won-ju, called forth a great echo from the young generations despite its extremely exceptional dispositions. Lastly, Korean advertisements using computers are becoming prevalent as the role of the computer is being intertwined with information. This is a result of the tremendous amount of information that is starting to float in the network through Intergrated Service Digital Network(ISDN). The globalization of advertising is ultimately owed to the computer as it can deal with the things in various languages. With these dispositions, Korean advertisements have begun to have a few changes according to the consuming trends after the IMF bailout. Advertisers have been increasing the number of coupon advertisements in newspapers to attract money conscious consumers, carrying on a propaganda of giving things away for free. Using this propaganda, the advertising companies had to create advertisements that convey the message that the price of goods is very low for its high-quality. On the contrary, the fact that the national classes are being divided into two groups of the haves and have-nots, hasn? reduced the number of advertisements for expensive articles. These advertisements are targeted towards high-classes society members, and for teenagers not affected by the national economical situation. For example, according to the surveys made by Cheil Communications Inc., the ratio of girls in high school who have name brand jeans that cost more than one hundred thousand won reached 55.3%. Further demonstrating this trend is that high-priced refrigerators such as Zipel of Samsung and Dios of Daewoo which are famous for their high prices have been more favored than imported ones.

Outlooks Upon Future Advertisement

Like these, Korea? past has been full of changes in the type and use of advertising. This leads one to wonder what the features of advertising will be in the coming century. It is predicted that regional-limited advertisements, for example, those that are only for Korea through the use of papers or television, will have no more great influences. Consequently, these means of advertising will have difficulties in attracting consumers. Instead, computers will be primarily used for advertising, substituting the older means. That is, consumers will be able to find information related to goods, and can judge whether to buy these goods or not through the use of computers. It is a matter of course that the process of choosing and purchasing goods will be performed through computers. This has been already shown in the form of electronic commercial transactions. However, this tendency towards purchasing articles through computers will be extended and generalized not only for younger generations who are very familiar with computers, but also for people in general irrespective of their age. This variation in advertising can be seen in the five changing spheres which are market environment, medium, sales targets, expression, and consumer? consciousness. With respect to the market environment, it will be arranged around the center of the internet and the electronic commercial transactions that were mentioned above. The use of networking through computers will rise as a result of the internet, which provides a stupendous amount of information in comparison with existing mediums like the television, radio and newspaper or magazine. Advertisements will be concentrated on the young generation who is living in the digital world, with the use of expressions to position goods in specific images that are not much different from today. Lastly, about the changes in consumer? consciousness, Shin In-sup, a president of the Ad.com, one of the internet company, said, “As consumers in general become more sophisticated as a result of better educations, advertising is bound to become more truthful. As media will continue to “explode”, advertisers will have to search for better ways to reach the matured consumers.”

Conclusion

Looking at the aforementioned features of Korean advertisements, we can see that they have been developed in various ways. They have been influenced by contemporary cultures, political and economical situations, and advent of new generations. As a result, it is possible that each advertisement can be involved with the certain ideology of those times. Also in any event, the advertisements will use what ever is necessary to attract the consumers?attention, regardless of means. Therefore, it is necessary that consumers have a mature consciousness and objective viewpoint towards tempting advertisements. Above all, the viewers of advertisements should get into the habit of rationally purchasing goods. Kim Hong-tack criticized Korean people? receptive attitude towards advertisements; “Koreans hardly read the description of the product, even when they purchase medicine, and rarely request the producer to put their goods in order.” Also the civil movement groups can contribute to doing away with exaggerating advertisements. In addition to that, the advertisers are demanded to carry on pre-censorship by themselves in place of the other side, that being consumers. By all means, these kind of efforts have limitations since they cannot help but pursuing maximum profits which is the obvious objective of advertising manufacturers. Consequently, it seems that nobody but the receivers of advertisements should play a major role in purchasing the right products. In this state, advertisements will be able to function as a true source of information.