The London School of Economics and Political Science Practicing Globalization: Mediation of The Creative in South Korean Advertising Kee Woong Lee A thesis submitted to the Department of Sociology of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, December 2013 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. Abstract The aim of my thesis is to investigate the various ways in which globalization is performed in the locus of the South Korean advertising industry. In doing this, I focus upon the practice of creative advertising which is considered as one of the main practices to perform globalization in the locus. Addressing globalization as performativity means that this study rejects the idea of globalization as an objective structure. Instead, it approaches globalization as discursively induced practices and a transitory construction constituted of aggregate action. However, the actions that build globalization are diverse and situated in time and place. It necessitates this study to ‘follow’ the actors who embody narratives of globalization and produce it in their daily performances of those narratives. In this thesis, I follow South Korean advertising creatives who are an embodiment of a particular type of agency which identifies creative advertising with globalization and modernity. In this respect, their practicing creative advertising is simultaneously practicing globalization and modernity. However, their practice of creative advertising is situated in the South Korean advertising industry and takes place in a network of actors who embody different agencies. It makes creatives’ practice of globalization and modernization by way of creative advertising an ongoing struggle and negotiation. I explore the ways in which creatives’ practice of creative advertising transforms when they are connected to other actors in the network, particularly ad firms and clients; and the ways in which this transformation produces different forms of globalization. In this thesis, globalization appears multiple, contingent and mediated. Various narratives of globalization produce diverse subjects but these narratives are locally mediated. It is the processes of performing the imaginary ‘global’ that is locally defined. Therefore, globalization is essentially a local product in which local agents practice the local on a new platform. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................. 1 1.1. Globalization and Creativity in South Korean Advertising ............................... 1 1.2. Research Design and Fieldwork ....................................................................... 11 1.3. Organization of Thesis ..................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2 Globalization, Advertising and Creativity .................................. 21 2.1 Globalization as Performativity ........................................................................ 21 2.2 Advertising and Creativity ................................................................................ 29 Chapter 3 Mapping the Locus: The South Korean Advertising Industry ... 40 3.1. Historical Development of the South Korean Advertising Industry ............... 40 3.2. Structure of the South Korean Advertising Industry ....................................... 53 3.3. Three Advertising Agencies in Study .............................................................. 65 Chapter 4 Producing Creative Subjects ...................................................... 73 4.1. Creative Identity .............................................................................................. 75 4.2. Work Conditions .............................................................................................. 91 4.3. The Absence of Creative Management .......................................................... 102 Chapter 5 Three Paths to the Global ......................................................... 113 5.1. Cheil: Going Global ....................................................................................... 115 5.2. Diamond Ad: Coping with the Global ........................................................... 133 5.3. Welcomm Publicis: Learning the Global ....................................................... 145 Chapter 6 Globalization and Localization of the Local ............................ 154 6.1. Client-Agency Relationship .......................................................................... 156 6.2. Competition and Partnership ......................................................................... 167 6.3. The Return of In-house Agencies .................................................................. 182 Chapter 7 Aesthetics, Styles and Globalization ........................................ 190 7.1. ‘Big Model’ Advertising ................................................................................ 192 7.2. Referencing .................................................................................................... 203 7.3. The Creative Network ................................................................................... 212 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 224 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 230 Tables and Figures (Table 1-1) Demography of Interviewees………………………………………………………………………… 17 (Table 3-1) Ten largest Advertising Markets in 2004……………………………………………………….53 (Table 3-2) Largest Advertisers in South Korea in 2004………………………………………………………55 (Table 3-3) Major Advertising Agencies in South Korea in 2004 (by billings)……………………..56 (Table 3-4) Major Advertising Agencies in South Korea 1995 (by billings)……………………….….58 (Table 3-5) Advertising Expenditure by Media 2005……………………………………………………………61 (Figure 5-1) Dashida Television Ad…………………………………………………………………………………..121 (Figure 6-1) Iriver Television Ads……………………………………………………………………………………….174 (Figure 7-1) KTF Have a Good Time Television Ad……………………………………………………………192 (Figure 7-2) SK Telecom Human and Human… and Communication Television Ad……………200 (Figure 7-3) Suspected Copycat Adverts and Alleged Originals………………………………………..204 (Figure 7-4) Tylenol Television Ad……………………………………………………………………………………215 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1. Globalization and Creativity in South Korean Advertising Creativity is “a staple byword of the discourse of advertising” (Negus and Pickering, 2004: vi). Picking up an advertising trade journal and flicking through its pages, we routinely come across expressions like “creative promotions and campaigns”, “creative brief and research” and “creative hotshops and boutiques”. We also see news and features with great regularity about “the personnel awarded for their creative contributions to the industry” (ibid). It is not unusual to hear that “creative jobs are the most high-value added entities of the advertising agency” while “the plight of the agency in the market is […] precarious [without a successful team of creative workers]” (Faulconbridge et al., 2008: 31). All these give the impression that creativity occupies a central position in the business of advertising for both individual’s chance of success and ad agency’s getting ahead of competition. Or, at least, it could be interpreted that the advertising industry is keen to be seen in this way and thus tries hard to present itself like this. Either way, the centrality of creativity in advertising appears unquestionable. However, there is the other side of the coin. Firstly, creativity has not always been considered this important in advertising. In fact, it was not so long ago when advertising was obsessed with science and aspired to become a pure scientific discipline (see Packard, 1957; Key, 1974). At the time, creativity, “with its implication of the intuitive, the nonrational and the eccentric” (Frank, 1997: 41), was almost entirely ignored. Secondly, despite the growing pervasion and naturalization of the aforementioned discourse, it does not appear that it is universally and unreservedly embraced by the advertising industry today as something central to their business: on the one hand, it remains a terrain of fierce dispute and contestation between actors within the industry, not only the well-documented tension between agency and client but also between advertising practitioners themselves (see Mazzarella, 2003a; Nixon, 2003; Cronin, 2004a; 2004b; Bilton, 2009); on the other hand, it shows markedly uneven spatial distribution across different advertising industries. From a global perspective, there are a select few countries seen to produce “cutting-edge creative productions” while all the others “little more than banal calls to buy a particular product” (Pratt, 2006: 1883). Even in the countries with a great reputation for creative