*CF, also known as Commercial Film, is a term used by Koreans to refer to any type of television advertisements.*
After the 1997 IMF crisis, as businesses started to adapt to the neoliberal restructuring, a shift on marketing strategies started to emerge in South Korea. Rather than having a product-centered approach, most goods and commodities are advertised with a consumer-centered approach. The consumer-centered approach mainly focuses on building the brand and promoting a lifestyle rather than selling specific products. This shift especially utilized the involvement of celebrities as brands start to merge with entertainment to attract the mainstream audience’s attention. This, therefore, connects Korean advertisement to popular culture.
Popular culture, according to Stuart Hall, is defined through “its rootedness in actual material conditions and lived experiences”. He believes that “popular” is about “wide circulation and commerciality” whereas “popular culture” can be often understood in relation to “manipulative consumerism” and is said to be an ongoing process.
Incorporating popular culture, the primary purpose of CFs have grown to seem less advertising-like as it is more about telling a certain story or demonstrating an ideal lifestyle that engages with the audience in ways that may allow them to feel relatable and entertained. In particular, k-pop idols have made music videos and songs specifically for brands and products that they are advertising for. One well-known example is Big Bang and 2NE1’s collaboration on the song “Lollipop”.
The song was released for the promotion of LG CYON’s Lollipop phone. Not only was the song often considered a song from an actual album, but it has also boosted 2NE1’s popularity before their actual official debut.
Songs and lyrics were created in relation to the product and brand image to not only entertain the audience but for the song to be stuck in their head. This “musical advertisement” allows the audience to immediately associate the song with the brand and product promoted even when it is not on sale anymore; this not only raises the popularity of the idol group but builds on the brand image as well. Another recent example of brainwashing CF songs is Heechul (A member of Super Junior) and Seohyun (A member of AOA)’s addictive Gmarket song. It is known to be the “Korean PPAP” where they repeatedly hammer keywords like “hot, hot, hot”, “specials, specials, specials” and “sales, sales, sales”. Gmarket, with the effect of this song, took the lead in 2018’s summer sales as users are continuously exposed to the brand.
Overall, Korea’s use of compound advertising, “praises the commodity indirectly by the use of models and stories that are tied to the brand”, have not only successfully “moved people’s hearts” as the audience started desiring the lifestyle and values of the brand (rather than the product itself), it has also outstood other countries’ advertisement effects as they packaged the CF industry as a form of popular culture itself.
Referenced sources:
http://seoulbeats.com/2013/04/k-pop-as-a-means-of-advertising/
https://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2011/07/stuart-hall-notes-on-deconstructing_22.html
Olga Fedorenko, 2014, “South Korean Advertising as Popular Culture,” The Korean Pop Culture Reader, 341 – 62.
The Politics of K-Pop 
What I found interesting was that on certain Korean variety shows, there is sometimes even a segment in which celebrities (particularly idols) get to show off their skills in advertising a product (eg. drinking a fresh drink, being a lover of chicken, etc) in order to get them casted in potential commercials. One primary example of this is when Seolhyun from AOA, whose video of her eating two packets of instant black bean noodles (짜장면) received over 10 million views overnight and eventually helped her get the opportunity to model for them.
On one hand, I do feel like that utilizing celebrities for commercials is nothing new. What makes Korea unique in this aspect is how permeated popular culture is with these advertisers, exemplifying the ideas of “Hallyu-hwa” and the integration of pop culture with products and other aspects of Korean culture that have nothing to do with Hallyu itself. Going back to the example of Seolhyun, she’s apparently been a model for numerous products and services, some of which are not even related to K-pop such as outdoor goods, a pork brand, black box, car insurance, and more. Seolhyun herself even said that she wants to shoot a commercial for home appliances.
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