A Study on the Advertising Strategy Using 'Shin Hallyu' Cultural Content for Marketing Korean Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Products Targeting Chinese Consumers

The "New Korean Wave" (Shin Hallyu) phenomenon, which is represented by the global popularity of BTS and director Bong Joon-ho's film "Parasite," is making the world excited. The influence of the Korean Wave is not only on politics, society, and culture, but it also has considerable economic ripple effects. We applied individual in-depth interviews with seven media and marketing experts in China to assess the changes in the impact of Korean cultural content (i.e., Hallyu content) and examine the possibility of marketing for Korean small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) products using Hallyu content. Considering its massive market potential, China is still an attractive target for Korean companies and is of even greater importance to SMEs, which are highly dependent on exports and lacking marketing budgets as well as a professional workforce. Korean businesses and the economy at large would get a real boost if they could penetrate the Chinese market by utilizing the strength of Hallyu content. Based on the results of the in-depth interviews, the conclusion of our study suggests the direction of advertising strategy on how Korean products can attract the minds of Chinese consumers by utilizing the Shin Hallyu. This research is a practical study that diagnoses the reality of the Korean Wave in China objectively and has excellent practical implications as it proposes methods of how SMEs should use Hallyu for their marketing strategies.