Korea has had a notorious reputation for doing a lousy job of properly promoting itself to foreigners (ie, Arirang, VANK, etc…). More often than not, the marketing is done through the eyes and mind of Koreans, as if knowing how to promote to Koreans equates that the same strategy should be applied to promoting to foreigners (ie., Arirang, VANK, etc..). Lord knows that we are tired of hearing the same old conversation from Korean strangers who when we first meet, utter such things as ‘Have you tried kimchi???’, ‘Do you know that Korea has 4 distinct seasons???’, ‘Oh, you know kimbap?!’

It’s almost become expected to hear a pop and fizzle after Korea announces that they are going to release a ‘revolutionary’ English site or travel guide or some other kind of tourism media catered to foreigners. But something truly magical has happened. I don’t know if heads came together and said ‘Guys, we absolutely suck at trying to understand how to connect with foreigners and foreign tourism’, and perhaps they brought in a US marketing firm to pull this off, but their new promo video for Korea tourism is stunningly perfect in the way that it hits the target audience that has oft eluded them:

HT to Marmot.