Korean brands, images, and naming
Posted by Pinyin Info on 27 Dec 2005 at 04:17 pm | Tagged as: Chinese characters, English, Korea, Korean, signage
Choe Yong-shik, the author of What’s Wrong With Korea’s Global Marketing, has some interesting comments on company names and branding in South Korea.
He notes that in 1992 the Korean company Samsung switched its logo, changing from using the Chinese characters 三星 to the Roman alphabet (with a stylized A):
This, he says, is representative of a trend:
Since the 1990s, many companies have carried out similar corporate identity projects that have seen the gradual extinction of the practice of using Chinese character logos. Companies have increasingly leaned toward more appealing names in the Roman alphabet as a means to establish a global brand image.
Using Chinese characters as an international brand image in today’s global market is not only ineffective, but it also borders on silliness.
source: Samsung, LG’s Brand Globalization History, Korea Times, December 26, 2005
Something else appealing would be to use English phonology. Therefore, English users can pronounce the logo, too. But, have you seen the new Korean romanization? It looks and feels like a language from outer space and super ineffective and silly!
I was in Korea six months ago and didn’t notice a new system- can anyone provide a link?
시끄러워요!
I think that you should stop talking about products that don’t really concern you. Alien language from outer-space? Garbage! It is just written like that so European consumers can pronoun what it is!