The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) is at the forefront of promoting Korean culture around the world. KOCIS is part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and engaged in overseas promotion of Korean culture, government-to-government cultural exchanges and cooperation and national image enhancement. It is also running Korean Cultural Centers and Korea Centers around the world to strategically facilitate its PR activities. KOCIS has been adapting its PR strategy to take advantage of social media. What's more, KOCIS Cultural Delegations contribute to overseas promotion of Korean culture in a bottom-up manner.
Korea IT Times sat down with Seo Kang-soo, the director and assistant minister of KOCIS to listen to what KOCIS is specially doing and what kind of strategy they have as a PR organization for Korea.
Q. What are the major projects of the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) this year
The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, is responsible for overseas promotion of Korean culture, international cultural exchanges and cooperation and national image enhancement. Specifically speaking, KOCIS is engaged in planning overseas Korean culture promotions, building and running Korean Cultural Centers in other nations, holding Korean culture festivals, launching various culture promotion programs, reinforcing cultural exchanges and cultural cooperation, making and distributing promotional videos aimed at enhancing the image of Korea, making and distributing all sorts of publications, running Korea's No.1 overseas promotion portal "korea.net," inviting foreign journalists and providing support to foreign correspondents.
This year, KOCIS has embarked on a variety of promotional activities by capitalizing on global sporting festivals like the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 60th anniversary of the Korean War and the G20 Seoul Summit.
For a start, taking advantage of the fever during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, KOCIS hosted Korean Culture Festivals from May 17 to June 5 in five regions in four nations -South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Turkey. In particular, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Korea-Nigeria diplomatic ties, Korean Cultural Center officially opened on May 24, which is the first on the African Continent and will play a pivotal role in introducing Korean culture to the region.
In addition, this year, the project of inviting foreign journalists -- which has mainly revolved around individual invitations and provision of simple support for news gathering -- is morphing into "Bethel Fellowship Program" that pushes for themed group invitations, discussions and field reports.
KOCIS successfully accomplished a project to invite ASEAN journalists in May this year. And, in June, journalists living in the nations who fought in the Korean War were invited in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. KOCIS plans to invite journalists from African nations at the end of July, where Korea is an unknown, faraway nation, and from the Middle East where there is growing interest in Korea. What's more, on the occasion of the G20 Summit in Seoul, KOCIS will invite foreign journalists and journalists of Korean descent to publicize Korea's rapid economic growth and democratic development to the rest of the world.
KOCIS has made and distributed overseas promotional videos and commercials in a bid to enhance the image of Korea. This time, we are working on crafting a concept in which Korea emerged from the ruins of the Korean War to become an international contributor with rapid economic growth and democratization under its belt. We try to project Korea as a good neighbor who takes initiative among the G20 member nations, tackles the global financial crisis and plays a bridging role between the developed and developing worlds.
Besides, KOCIS has been implementing a program called "Your Suggestions on Overseas Promotion," to draw participation from the public.
On the grounds that nearly 12 million Koreans go abroad on holiday, each Korean is a cultural ambassador. When Korean travelers find errors in museum data on Korea or they feel much more needs to be done, they can visit www.kocis.go.kr and post their suggestions in Your Suggestions on Overseas Promotion in anticipation of actual rectification. In other words, KOCIS is always open to new ideas and suggestions on overseas promotion so as to get the public on board.
Q. What are the roles and visions of Korean Cultural Centers and Korea Centers
KOCIS has put up Korean Cultural Centers in strategic locations on a continental and country-by-country basis in order to introduce Korean culture, enhance the image of Korea through cultural exchanges in culture-related areas like cultural arts, cultural industries, tourism and sports and enable efficient overseas promotion.
Expanding the functions of Korean Cultural Centers, Korea Centers house institutions related to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism -- such as Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), Game Industry Commission and Korea Copyright Commission. By doing so, Korea Centers serve as one-stop information centers aimed at the promotion of Korean culture, and create synergetic effects in spreading Korean culture around the world.
As of now, 16 Korean Cultural Centers are operating in 12 nations, of which Korea Centers are being run in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Los Angeles. Korean Cultural Centers hosts an array of events such as exhibitions, performances, movie screenings, Korean language classes, cultural lectures and symposiums in order to publicize the excellence of Korean culture and revitalize cultural exchanges.
KOCIS plans to put up 37 more Korean Cultural Centers -- especially in Southeast Asia, Central and South America, the Middle East and Africa where cultural exchanges are relatively small in volume -- and to push for cultural ODA (Official Development Assistance) and provision of support for market entry by private entities in order to improve Korea's image and use Korean Cultural Centers as a control tower for efficient overseas promotion.
Q. What is your PR strategy in response to new trends like the spread of smartphones and the explosion of social media like Twitter and blogs
KOCIS is well positioned to put the expansion of social media and smartphones to practical use.
Compared to previous PR channels, this new form of media is a low-cost, high-efficiency marketing tool that targets the entire world. Thus, the new media is highly applicable when it comes to national PR activity. KOCIS has already taken a multi-faceted approach to the new media.
At the moment, we have been running seven social media promotional platforms on Twitter, Facebook and blogs, etc. And we are working on developing a smartphone application which is scheduled to be available in the near future.
In addition, we will proactively respond to a rapidly changing PR environment by diversifying contents distribution channels -for example, provision of more e-publications.
We will continue to cash in on the merits of social media, which is strong in communications, in making our PR efforts. And various promotional contents will be developed in consideration of the characteristics of each platform. In short, we will utilize the new media as the most optimized PR channel.
Q. What is KOCIS's strategy for enhancing the image of Korea via overseas media coverage
The mass media works as one of the strongest tools for setting and fine-tuning a nation's image because general people come into contact with the media on a daily basis. Therefore, how Korea is perceived in the eyes of foreigners is mainly determined by overseas media coverage of Korea.
With Korea's international status growing in importance in the world, the foreign media has started to pay due attention to Korean culture while still focusing on the Korean economy and the inter-Korean relations.
To cast the image of Korea in a positive light, KOCIS has created varied channels with foreign news organizations and been strengthening networks with them.
First of all, we are making efforts to provide foreign journalists translated versions of press releases in a swift, accurate manner in order to help them report based on accurate, ample data.
Korea has also offered support for foreign journalist gathering new materials, and developed various newsworthy areas that can pique their interest.
Furthermore, we invite journalists from developed nations, Asia and Africa and provide customized support for news gathering in line with their specific areas of interest.
On the other hand, when factual errors are found, we swiftly rectify them. In addition, as for news reports providing different perspectives, we write a column to clearly explain and argue our case.
Q. Could you elaborate on the activities of KOCIS Cultural Delegations, as well as their PR achievements
KOCIS Cultural Delegations are made up of private envoys -namely, college students - who go abroad to take on volunteer work with the added duty of promoting Korean culture abroad. This KOCIS Cultural Delegation program, which dates back to 2006, is designed to introduce Korean culture to foreigners and embellish the image of Korea. Though the number of participating college students fluctuates in winter and summer seasons, about 700 to 1,500 volunteers are grouped into 40 to 60 teams to go on cultural mission trips.
Under the program, volunteering college students learn what a cultural ambassador should basically know. And several special lectures on Korean culture and promotional materials are provided to help the participants fulfill their cultural promotion duties overseas.
This summer's KOCIS Cultural Delegation consists of nearly 200 cultural ambassadors who have taken compulsory classes titled "Desirable Roles of Cultural Delegations" and "The Essence of Korean Culture through Comparing Korean Culture with those of China and Japan. In addition, elective classes such as "Samul nori (a genre of traditional percussion music originating in Korea)" and "Hanji (Korean paper) Craftwork" are also offered to both entertain and educate foreigners about Korean culture. By offering various kinds of promotional gifts, participating college students are scheduled to spend their summer holidays promoting Korean culture in 22 nations in South East Asia and Africa.
