How successful South Korean brands create value through immersion

This competitive advantage is perhaps most apparent when comparing global searches – a powerful measure of how consumers approach and engage with brands digitally – for Gentle Monster and Warby Parker (Figure 1). Although Warby Parker still leads in overall web searches, Gentle Monster increasingly dominates on image and YouTube searches, a testament to its superior visual and animated appeal among global audiences.

Doing things differently: immersion through the senses

Gentle Monster is not an isolated case. It’s an example of a much more systematic approach to brand-building that is shaking up many industries – from retail to music to fashion – by adopting a brand approach that features unparalleled immersion, from discovery to purchase. 

This focus on immersion – that is, being imbued in a sensory experience – is central to the entire ecosystem of South Korean brands (or K-brands) and is a key driver of the country’s emergence as a cultural powerhouse on the international stage. Take K-pop, an industry valued at over US$5 billion. Beyond catchy choruses and riffs, the genre is known for its TikTok-friendly choreography and arresting visual performances that appeal to touch and sight respectively, boosting fans’ experiences and overall brand appeal.

An analysis of global searches reveals that K-pop departs from other musical styles with respect to visual value (Figure 2). Like Gentle Monster, the genre stands out for being recognised on another dimension aside from its core auditory value.

In 2023, K-pop triggered 11 times more image searches than YouTube searches. It also triggered over twice the image searches compared to web searches globally, far higher than the 1:1 image-to-web search ratio for hip hop. This explains why many luxury and fashion brands – which also rely on their visual appeal – have aggressively sought out sponsorship deals with K-pop idols to gain traction among younger consumers.

Also read: The Nose Knows: Sniffing out the marketing tricks of the trade

K-brands’ strategies for engaging the senses

Be it fashion, music or comics, South Korean brands are adding value to the customer experience and furthering their worldwide appeal by creating immersive experiences that engage consumers on a deep, multisensory level. Other brands that want to elevate their offerings can employ a similar strategy in the following ways.

1. Deepen the sensory experience

Brands can trigger immersion by providing customers with a rich and heightened experience focused on one of the senses. Doing so means enriching the palette (i.e. variations) of a single sensory dimension. Think about chefs adapting their cuisine to local tastes by blending different flavours and ingredients, or fashion houses rolling out clothing in either bright, saturated hues or a monochromatic colour palette. A prime example is South Korean unisex fashion label Ader Error, known for its minimalist and oversized streetwear.

In the South Korean gaming industry, “phygital” participatory culture helps deepen the overall sensory experience for gamers. The presence of gaming cafés throughout the country, coupled with the fact that e-sports is considered an official course specialisation at university, has powered the growth of local gaming companies like NCSoft (behind “Lineage”) and Krafton (behind “PUBG”) by boosting fan engagement, which helps the brands produce world-class games.

South Korea has also deepened the understanding of its culture among audiences abroad, thereby boosting its relevance on a local level and creating opportunities to engage with K-brands on a sensory dimension. Consider India, where South Korean culture has gained traction and where Korean is the language in greatest demand on Duolingo after Hindi, English and French. This momentum stems in large part from significant cultural brokerage efforts that have made South Korean products more accessible and relatable to other consumer cultures. 

Concretely, the emergence of kimchi curry and kimchi pakora (variations of kimchi mixed with staple Indian dishes), and the adaptation of graphics and characters in K-dramas to appeal to an Indian audience, have facilitated the especially strong adoption of K-brands in India. These are just two of the ways in which South Korean brands and businesses are boosting their relevance among foreign audiences to facilitate customer immersion and deepen the sensory experience.

2. Broaden the sensory experience

Another way for brands to boost immersion is by adding one or several other senses on top of the sense that is core to their products. For instance, culinary ventures that deal primarily with taste can grow guests’ auditory or visual experiences – be it by decking out the dining area in art installations or publishing a food-related podcast.

Real-life examples include fast-growing South Korean fashion brand Ader Error, which opened pastry shops next to its stores to augment its business’ sensory universe through taste, or cosmetics company Amorepacific, which launched an art museum to boost its visual identity.

South Korean webtoons reshaped the comic reading experience by employing a similar approach. The industry is powered by companies including Naver’s Webtoon, Daum and Kakao Page and was valued at around US$3.9 billion in 2022 (about one-fourth the size of the global comic industry). What the companies did was include sound effects as part of short stories created for mobile-only formats. These sensory additions augment the narrative. As readers turn the page, the sound of a kiss, the splash of water or the bang of an explosion add value to the reading experience by blurring the lines between reading and listening.

The immersion economy: hyper-industrialisation, not post-industrialisation

These innovations are more than digital technologies per se or a post-industrial response to rising pressure on South Korea’s manufacturing-based economy. Perhaps a logic of “hyper-industrialisation” best captures the country’s recent impetus when it comes to brand-building. 

This involves focusing on a few high-value cultural domains (e.g. music and fashion), with production characterised by emotionally and sensorially intense offerings that enable K-brands to occupy focal attention on the global stage. This is bolstered by a coordinated approach by different economic actors – chaebols (family-run conglomerates), national tech players and entertainment mavericks – that help brands scale and become global household names.

In today’s world, where the most valued brands are those that help consumers build and develop their identities, the South Korean textbook is rich in many teachings. By focusing on the role of the senses, brand embodiment and storytelling, other businesses can devise an immersive strategy to grow their appeal and reinforce their competitive advantage.

This is an adaptation of an article published in Harvard Business Review.