Creative Korean Advertising #20: Quit Smoking for Her? Or for Him?
( Source: Focus Busan, 29/1/10, p. 13 )
Creative advertising by design? Or just by luck?
If you look at the large black text, it reads “Now I’m getting married, so it’s time to quit.” A noble sentiment indeed, and as there are 10 times more Korean men than women that smoke, a bride rather than a groom is the obvious choice of model.
But then she is wearing the patch, and with the same text, which is a little odd. And then if you take a closer look at her face…
Personally, I think it’s actually a man’s face pasted onto a woman’s body, but my students – eager for some distraction on a Friday afternoon – were evenly divided. While I do concede that it may be a woman’s however, albeit with a rather unflattering expression, the ambiguity renders either ad concept badly executed.
On the other hand, it certainly got me to take a second look, and in turn 20 of my students. If that was the deliberate intention, then it was simply inspired!
Meanwhile, for those of you more interested in the topic of smoking in Korea itself, by coincidence earlier this week I had done the “Smoke Signals” chapter of Decisionmaker: 14 Business Situations for Analysis and Discussion (1997) with the same students, a hypothetical situation about a Korean intern at an international tobacco company that stumbles on confidential, board-level plans to encourage Korean teenage girls to smoke. While that proved too difficult for them unfortunately, I was very interested to read in “The strategic targeting of females by transnational tobacco companies in South Korea following trade liberalisation” by Kelley Lee (et.al) in Globalization and Health 2009, 5:2 later about how true to life some of the suggested strategies had been, summed up by the Korea Herald here.
( Source: Unknown )
Fortunately the original paper is still available to download if that piques your curiosity; only 10 pages long, I heartily recommend it. Alas, another that looks useful for a future post on cigarette advertising and gender I’d like to do - “Marital status and smoking in Korea: The influence of gender and age” by Hong-Jun Cho (et. al) in Social Science & Medicine 2008, 66:3 – isn’t, so I would be very grateful to any readers with library access if they could pass it on!
(For all posts in the Creative Korean Advertising series, see here)
When i first saw her, I also thought it was a man… It may be a woman, but she’s very au naturel compared to some others ads.
It kind of looks like a Korean actress/model by the name Seo Yeon Jin. She is a smoker and makes a lot of weird faces.
Still, this is nightmare stuff. And I’m not exactly in a position to have Korean women ruined for me forever.
Thanks, and one of my students also thought she was an actress, but couldn’t remember the name. I’ve tried typing the name you gave into Naver though, but with absolutely no results! (very strange) Are you sure Seo Yeon Jin/서연진 is correct?
If memory serves me right, it should be:
진서연
Edit:
Oh sorry, I did a switcheroo family and given name.
I, too, think the face looks masculine although I cannot identify any one specific trait. It is the combination of a strong jawline, thin lips, and narrow eyes, which are a common natural feature for Koreans of both sexes but almost never seen in female entertainers and models.
Isn’t that Rain’s face (Bi) ?
Those cheeks, bigger eyes…huge mouth…it’s a MAN baby!
Ummm. . .that’s a woman making a funny/weird facial expression. The ad can be construed as either “I’m doing it for her” (i.e. his wife, which would explain the picture of the woman–think of nagging gf/fiance) or “I’m doing it for him” (thus the picture of the woman, period).
That would be a lot of effort on the part of the co. to paste a man’s face onto a woman’s body and actually, it would be pretty weird.
Sure, it may well be, and I have to admit that she looks more and more like a woman the more I look at her. But if so, then surely you’ll acknowledge that her sex is still needlessly ambiguous?
Moreover, in addition to the “I’m doing it for her” directed to men and “I’m doing it for him” directed to women possibilities you mention though, a third is “I’m doing it for her” with him in the dress rather than her like I first thought, and I don’t think particularly difficult, especially in black and white (hair can be added over the face later). Thinking that is what it was is what made me do a double-take and take notice of the ad in the first place, which I doubt the other two, more traditional possibilities would have.
I wonder if this is in some way a subliminal message to women that they should quit something else after marriage – like their job.
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I think the fact that her face looks less feminine than the average korean model’s face makes it seem that the message they are trying to send is if you are a woman and you smoke you are unattractive.
You are so mean that’s how she looks.