Human Media Marketing for Advertisement

Green Pharmaceuticals in the U.S. employed a creative advertising method to sell its snoring treatment recently, spending $37,375 on it in 2005 to use people’s foreheads.

Andrew Fisher, an American web designer, advertised the treatment by putting an advertisement labeled “Snore Stop” in red on his forehead for a month.

Coleman-Korea, a company selling outdoor products, supported its camping products by giving them out for free to Gwak Jae-min (39), whose hobby is to go camping.

Gwak said that, “As I was armed with all kinds of camping stuff, people asked me for the functions or prices of the products.”

Lim Yeong-ran, vice president of the company, explained that the company expected a natural advertising effect at 100 camping sites around the country by supplying its products to camping maniacs free of charge.

Recruiting ordinary people to advertise its products-

“Human media marketing” uses ordinary people as a means of advertisement or promotion and is getting popular these days.

Recently, advertising methods have evolved to using human bodies instead of common means such as cars, placards, signs, or mass media.

In the U.S., advertisements using people’s foreheads, pregnant women’s bellies, or puppies’ bodies are on the rise. In Korea, Auction, an e-marketplace, is recruiting 100 ordinary people on whose bodies ads will be placed. Hong Yun-hee, deputy manager of Action, said that using people’s bodies is a wonderful advertising method to attract people’s attention for lower cost.

Dimchae, a successful marketing strategy for using human media marketing-

Choosing a group of consumers to publicize products is a kind of human media marketing.

Winia Mando, a manufacturer of Kimchi refrigerators in Korea, provided people with 2,000 Kimchi fridges named Dimchae, which were half of the total amount of its first production run after the company launched the products in December, 1995. At that time, the company aggressively targeted community meetings of housewives in Gangnam, which is the richest region in Korea. After that, Dimchae was known to be popular in Gangnam and has become a byword for domestic Kimchi fridges.

Kim Jong-woo, marketing manager of Winia Mando, said that, “The first experience of people around me using certain products and their evaluation has a great influence on consumers.”

UCC marketing is trustful-

Moreover, these days, marketing by using UCC is popular. The reason why such human media marketing methods are actively used is that they can easily approach consumers and that can enhance trust of products.

Park Su-gyeong, director of consumer beauty research of Amorepacific, said that consumers trust products more when ordinary consumers use and evaluate them than when entertainers or commercial models advertise them. Also, she added that such an advertisement is a good way for companies to promote the quality of their products indirectly to consumers.

imsoo@donga.com