Korean Food Trade Corp capitalises on ‘Korean fever’ with more aggressive marketing

The brand is running a US$258,000 (HK$2 million) TV and OOH campaign in Hong Kong, and the TVC (above) is also running in Singapore.

AT appointed local creative agency Hotdog and Mindshare last November as its partners for this campaign. Previously the client used various local agencies on a project basis.

Joshua Kim, marketing manager of AT Hong Kong, told Campaign Asia-Pacific that Hong Kong is one of the largest markets to import Korean strawberries, amounting US$8 million of imports in 2012. 

“We try to see what kind of trends are popular for Korean food in Hong Kong," he said. "Right now, we are playing catch up, as Korean strawberries are getting popular, but we want to become the top-of-mind choice.”

Currently Hong Kong people prefer Japanese strawberries, Kim said, but Korean strawberries provide high quality at a lower price.

The TVC emphasises on the ‘sweet mark’ of Korean stawberries—as goodies to have for breakfast, as a refreshing juice when doing exercise, and to share when you have happy moments with people you care about.

In the past, the client ran its TVCs only around Korean programming on ATV World on Saturday evenings. Now, thanks to Mindshare's economy of scale, the TVC, which launched in late December and is running until March, is apering extensively on TVB Jade, ATV. J2 TVB Pay Vision and HD. 

Kim said AT is planning to expand its partnership with Hotdog Workshop and Mindshare for other upcoming projects.

"We don’t have a big budget, so we try to smart and consolidating our resources," Kim said. AT will be running another new TVC, promoting Korean ginseng, starting in the beginning of February.

The brand is also running an OOH campaign in the Causeway Bay shopping district and MTR stations, using Korean pop girl band Kara as its brand ambassadors for Korean fresh produce and dishes.