rofessor Ahn Jong-bae's professional book on contents marketing , “Contents Marketing” is a story-telling marketing, showing the features of  examples of the contents industry and contents marketing in 13 genres such as tourism, movies, and games, among others. Let's have a look at Ahn’s lecture at the Internet Book Morning CEO held by Kyobo Book Center, calling for the age of emotional marketing over the products and meanings-Ed.

A flower girl was selling roses at a subway station in Seoul one day. She yelled “please buy flowers, my roses” to the passengers waiting to board the trains. Another flower girl yelled, “Please buy my flowers of love.” Still another flower girl nearby yelled, “Please buy my flowers, which are just like the roses that actor Chang Dong-kun gave to actress and model Koh So-young when confessing his love for her.” 

The results were that the second girl sold more flowers than the first girl and the third girl outsold both of them. What does this mean?

The first girl sold a commodity called “roses,” while the second one sold the meaning of the flowers, and the third one sold a emotional story.

In this day and age, emotion has begun to emerge as a new competitive factor. Global futurologist Rolf Janssen claims that this is an age where dream and emotion have become centerpieces for a “dream society.” Daniel Fink said in his book “A New Age is Coming,” that a key factor in business in this age is creating a concept with a story, making the content a key nucleus factor. Content means ‘that which is inside’.  The same word has another meaning, which is ‘satisfaction.’ What this means is that content is consequently what satisfies the human beings’ ultimate desire put inside a media. Then what is the core desire that should be satisfied with media content?

The biggest desire we have is to find something new and the creative desire to enjoy it. On the other hand, there is the playful desire to pursue excitement and fun, which leads to the conclusion that content should be able to satisfy both creative desire and playful desire. Archimedes found the floating power and came out to the street in naked. Many performers like the Beatles, Singer Seo Tae-ji and the Kids, and others who discovered new entertainment and new areas of fun received a warm reception not only in Korea, but around the world. 

In a word, this shows that in a story that provides a new fun and moving experience are human beings core desire has been playing a strong role.

Strategy for Contents Marketing:

The Contents Marketing Strategy is based on two major objectives: selling  Contents itself and promote products of a company through an invigorated use of contents to satisfy the basic human desires.

The first strategy of contents marketing is the One Source Multi-Use strategy, which is to create synergy by using strong content and its invigorated use, while expanding the category of contents usage.

One representative example is the Harry Potter books, which were written by J.K. Rowling. The books, core contents were made into films, game, theme parks, toys, and other diverse genres with the same content story, earning some 310 trillion won in the past 10 years around the world, which is far more than Korea’s car and chip exports in one year.

The second stage of contents marketing is the licensing expansion strategy. This is earning fees for licensing a contents to various genres and products.

Mickey Mouse is a prime example of this strategy, whose license has been sold for more than 3,000 diverse products earning more than 6 trillion won annually. When Mickey Mouse emerged, the new Mickey Mouse Law was created with two key clauses. These are: “Mickey cannot be used to bring harm to our family in any form of its content and products,” and “Mickey can be changed to cope with changes in trends in given ages.” Through the two clauses of the law, Mickey Mouse, as a character, has been loved by people around the world with huge sales of licensed products since its small launch in 1928 in animation form.

We in Korea can develop a character and make it known worldwide with such a healthy and beneficial spirit as Mickey Mouse and expand its contents worldwide to get as much value-added portion.

The Strategy for Invigorating Brands and Products Through Contents

I would like to touch on strategies and examples to invigorate the sales of products and brands through the use of contents. First, strategies should be made of various stories told with content genres in an exciting and moving way. For example, they made a documentary on the choco pie, “Pie Road.” The documentary showed beautiful and heart-warming stories from around the world with spiritual warmth as the main subject in an effort to increase sales of choco pies around the world.

Not long ago, Daewoo Construction produced an animation film with the title “Jung Daewoo,” giving life to the animation character as an 11-year veteran section head of the construction firm. The animation film contained the daily life of “Jung Daewoo,” a fictional character, even including his home life and social life to spotlight the public image of the construction company in an effort to bring the public closer to the company.

The second way to activate content is to have sponsors to participate in diverse ways as an indirect ad. For example, The Forte of Kia Motors appeared in the first cut of the TV drama, “The God of the Athena War” and often appears in later scenes. The result was that the TV drama became very popular along with the Forte when it was put on the market later, as many viewers remembered the new car model from the TV drama and learned that Kia Motors was one of the sponsors of the popular drama series.

The third one is content using Hallyu(korea wave) as a marketing tool, which can bring a tremendous marketing result if it is employed to promote something. For example, the Lotte Duty-free shops have been holding a Hallyu Star Family Concert every year attracting many Hallyu fans and creating a Tour Entertainment Marketing.

On the other hand, Asiana Airlines has been flying the Daejanggum Tour Routes to enable passengers to visit the Daejanggum theme parks in foreign countries and get to taste foods that appear on the Daejanggum movies as part of a tour package. The Daejanggum tour package has made not only the tour routes popular, selling many air tickets, but also Daejanggum very well known abroad.

I think if we use contents marketing properly, we will be able to satisfy the consumers’ desire for new entertainment and emotional experiences and in this sense, contents marketing will play a very significant role in the future.

Now, contents marketing has become an area that is absolutely needed in this age of dream and emotion. It needs to be strengthened and used positively for a number of key purposes including business products and brands marketing.