Marketing In North Korea (1) - To kick off the series

Jeon Byung-kil

Senior Consultant of YESInnovation

former of Secretary General of UniKorea Foundation

North Korea has operated several social media accounts for public relations purposes, including a YouTube account featuring female university students in Pyongyang. Videos posted on the account show them introducing new ice cream flavors at an ice cream parlor, going to an amusement park and jogging along the Taedong River.

They also eat hamburgers, go to beauty salons to get their hair done, and go to stores to shop for various goods. Looking at the products on display in the stores, it seems that there is a wider variety of manufactured goods produced in North Korea than before, and the packaging is more sophisticated. Although it is still a very small number of people, they are gradually getting used to brands and marketing, which is the flower of capitalism.

North Korean YouTuber YuMi visits the Rungna People's Pleasure Park in Pyongyang, North Korea, in a video uploaded on 

September 1, 2022. Olivia Natasha-YuMi Space DPRK daily/YouTube

The lives of the young women whose stories appear on North Korea's public relations social media accounts are actually those of a small group of young women living in Pyongyang. It is a privilege in North Korea to be able to raise children in Pyongyang, where the entire family lives and both parents work.

In my future posts, you will often see shops in Pyongyang and the products they sell. This is not to speak for North Korea's privileged class or to promote the regime. It's about analyzing the marketing that's emerging in North Korea. North Korea is one of the world's poorest countries with limited political freedom and human rights, so there are a limited number of people who can experience or expand their minimal brand presence. The people who have these basic requirements are the residents of Pyongyang.

First and foremost, ‘North Korea’ and ‘brand’ don't go together. There's a certain pressure to attach a brand to North Korea. Especially when it means 'brand within North Korea'. When I mention the combination to people, they often ask me how free enterprise is possible in a system that shares elements of socialism and totalitarianism, and whether brands, marketing, and advertising, which are the flower of capitalism, are realistic in North Korea.

North Korea is a closed country, but there is a clear interest and will to improve its internal economic system. It wants to increase production through technological innovation, reduce resource waste, and make distribution more efficient. It also wants to win the hearts and minds of consumers through sophisticated design, and it wants to understand their needs.

It's not the kind of radical transformation that the outside world is looking for, but the North Korean authorities want to keep the regime in place and improve it in part to their liking. To that end, the country has introduced business studies in some universities and entrepreneurship programs for young people and women, although not much people have benefited from them. Quality improvement training and distance learning (e-learning) programs are being implemented at major North Korean production sites. It is producing more consumer goods than ever before, has introduced online shopping malls and digital payment services, and is paying attention to brand intellectual property, product packing and design.

North Korea is keen on registering its trademarks with the international community to promote its overseas presence and exports, and it registers five to 10 trademarks with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) every year. Moreover, North Korea, and by extension, South Korea, has the task of fostering North Korean brands and cooperating with South Korean brands in preparation for the upcoming unification era.

What I'll be writing about is not a list of hard theories. First, It will analyze cases based on various stories and then will look at what might happen in the future based on imagination, which is the ability to see the unseen.