If you have seen the first episode of  the Korean Drama, Advertising Genius, Lee Tae Baek, you would recognize the ad below of the standing car. The ad was originally created by the real life Advertising Genius from Korea, Jeseok Yi, for Hyundai Motors and it is said that this drama, Advertising Genius – Lee Tae Baek  is loosely based on his life.

The first two episodes shows Lee Tae Baek as an gifted advertiser from Korea, who is in his early thirties but is still not able to find a job in an ad agency in Seoul. The reason being that he comes from a small town in Korea and is perceived to be not good enough for making it in Seoul. In the mean time he is working for a billboard agency putting up billboards on various high-rises in Seoul. He has his usual hardships in life, where his childhood girlfriend leaves him without leaving a trace, where his ideas are copied without any due credit given to him, where he has to take care of the education of his younger sister and so on.

Life of Advertising Genius – Yi Jeseok

Coming back to the real life Advertising Genius Jeseok Yi, he too had his usual share of hardships during the early stages of his career, which I got to know by reading his interview on Joongang Daily.

Jeseok Yi, majored in visual design and graduated with honors from Keimyung University in 2005. With his high GPA, Yi was confident that he could land a job at a decent ad agency. But when he started applying for jobs at local ad agencies, he was not even shortlisted for an interview. In order to build his resume, he applied for many local ad competitions but failed to win one. He felt like a loser and thought that the reason for his misfortune was that he went to a college in Daegu and not in Seoul.

In 2006, Jeseok Yi, admitted  himself to New York City’s School of Visual Arts (SVA) to broaden his horizons, when a middle-aged man criticized his creations . He had small printing company in his hometown of Daegu, where he mostly made banners and leaflets for local shops. He took pride in what he did until he was humiliated by a middle-aged man who worked for a competing shop.

“It was tough to penetrate Seoul from Daegu but it was a piece of cake from New York to Seoul.” He says the success he accomplished in New York easily granted him a golden ticket to success in Korea as well.

Jeski Social Campaign

Today he is living in New York, where he is pursuing a master of fine arts at the Yale University School of Art. He has won numerous awards including the Gold Award in the innovative marketing category, the highest award, from The One Show advertising awards in 2007 for an environmental awareness poster that depicted a smokestack as a gun firing towards the sky. Yi is the first Korean to receive the prestigious award. He also swept other prestigious ad awards including the Cannes International, Clio and the New York Festival. Most recently, he received the ad man of the year award from the Seoul Advertising and Public Relations Club in December and was named an ambassador for the National Police Agency, an honor usually reserved for celebrities, last August.

After winning numerous awards, he had internships at four major ad agencies in New York including JWT, BBDO and Foote Cone & Belding – but he declined all of their job offers and returned home. He started his agency named  Jeski Social Campaign (mind you, not Jeski Social Media) in 2009, focusing on PSA’s (public ad campaigns) rather than lucrative commercials. The mission of Jeski Social Campaign is research and study, rather than making profit. So he normally spends about 70 percent of his energy doing public-service work rather than commercial projects.  He feels that making type look perfectly great and doing Photoshop like a machine is not everything.

Advertising in Korea

Jeseok Yi feels that the short cut to success in the advertising industry is to start getting recognized from outside.  The nature of a Korean advertising company is different from that of foreign competitors doing business abroad. In Korea, most ad companies are subsidiaries of conglomerates whereas advertising companies abroad are owned by and named after the artist himself.

“Korean advertising firms face difficulty in pushing and reflecting their own philosophy in their works, shadowed behind the in-house environment of the conglomerates such as LG, and CJ,” he said. Yi was the first to start an advertising firm in Korea under his own name. “Lee & DDB and Ogilvy & Mather are both names of a person and a company. They are successful because, once you start a company under your name, there is no way out if you fail a project, you just have to stay being the best,” he said.

Jeseok Yi’s Philosophy

Jeseok Yi, strongly believes that people like him can change the world for the better because ad campaigns can change the way people think.

Ad campaigns can’t make you taller but they can make you think that you’re not short.

He said that he has lived and is living to find the answer to “why I live and what would make my life meaningful.” To this end, his works are aimed more toward aiding the unfortunate with his genius talent. He is smart and talented enough to create his awarded works and  to bring about happy changes to the world with his works. Jeski’s philosophy is to “make poor people happy than making happy people a bit happier,” which is why his 70% of his client list are many non-profit organizations including Red Cross, Korea Disaster Relief, World Vision, Political Campaign and Salvation Army.

Notable campaigns

Admiral Yi Shun Shin Undressing

The statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin had to undergo repair work after 40 years since its erection due to serious cracks and rusts.  While it was taken away for restoration, the absent space needed to be covered up with construction boards.  Seoul Department of City Planning, taking the city’s appearance in great consideration, plans to apply a creative idea to the boarding turn it into a work of art.

His company filled the void left by the statue with an installation that replicated a fitting room with a sign that read “Undressing.”

Seoul citizens were surprised at the site of such unconventional measures taken by the authoritative and conservative state institution.  Not only did this outdoor installation gain a great amount of mainstream media coverage but it also received acclamation from tourists across the globe, whose number exceeds more than 7.8 million per year.  This project is regarded significant in Korea in that the most uncreative people took the most uncreative subject from the most uncreative location and turned it into the most creative work. It was awe-inspiring and surprising that such a creative installation could replace the statue of an authority figure, especially because governmental organizations are stiff and conservative in many ways. The installation was nominated for, but did not win, the 2011 New York Festivals International Advertising Awards. It was the first time a Korean government project had been nominated for an award.

Other inspiring campaigns from Jeski Social Campaign

I have taken the images from Jeseok Yi’s website Jeski.org. Please visit his website for more inspiration.
Source: Joongang Daily, Korean Herald