Forget China and India, south Korea is the new up and coming place to get your creative agency in. At least to James Chung, founder and managing director at Lash Creative, it is.
The agency has opened a new set of doors in South Korea in the hope of tapping into the Korean creative market and bring a little Western spice to the work. Check out the photos above to have a nose around the new office.
“We’re trying to put a lot of the Western style design into the Korean culture,” says Chung. “I know the Korean creative is starting to improve a lot more, but they’re so stuck in their own cultural design spectrum. We’re trying to find the right balance to start that up.
“In terms of the Asian creative market, it’s always been India and China that’s been doing really well and now there’s Korea catching-up in the creative perspective. So it’s really good to get involved in the early stages.”
The technology for digital strategies, however, is pretty limited over there, says Chung. “Majority of the people still use Internet Explorer, meaning that if you’re using Internet Explorer the type of creative technology and animation you can do on the digital platform is very restricted.”
Here’s hoping Lash is able to open up the digital capabilities, as the agency already has a couple of clients under its belt, such as Korean tyre company, Nexen Tire. Lash will be doing the digital strategy and production for Nexen.
There is another client on board which Chung said he was unable to name right now.
“The only extent we can say at the moment is that it’s a top 10 company in Korea but they want to break out the official news from their end during March.”
The Korean-based Lash has also partnered with SEO/SEM specialists B&A Consulting and media exposure and PR Korean heavyweights, Gorilla Marketing, to help get the word out there.
In terms of who’ll be running the joint, Lash has hired four new staff for the Korean office with another three to go. Chung says he will be spending two weeks of each month over in Korea as well to help manage the new office.
“I’ve split myself in two,” he says.
The language barrier may be an issue for some agencies, says Chung, but being Korean he says he was able to penetrate the market fairly easily.
“The main reason behind this is that I’m Korean so it was quite easy for me to get in there,” he explains.
Based on that logic, the next place Lash has its sights on to find a new set of digs is Japan, as one of the founders of Lash is from Japan.
