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North Korea's new ad men try out pitches to new consumer class
Source: Reuters
Business | Tue May 17, 2016 7:47am EDT
North Korea's new ad men try out pitches to new consumer class
PYONGYANG | BY JAMES PEARSON
"Pyongyang Spirit: A drink you won't forget after drinking once", reads the text of an ad for a clear, vodka-like North Korean alcohol.
No country is further from Madison Ave than Soviet-style North Korea, but advertising is beginning to emerge as makers of goods try to pitch products to a rising group of consumers and a wealthy class of citizens.
From whitening toothpaste made from natural ingredients to sea-cucumber snacks that claim to fight cancer and tuberculosis, more goods are being sold in colorful ways to the growing class of "donju", or "masters of money," who generate wealth in a gray market economy that is allowed to operate but is not formally recognized.
North Korean ads are small and subtly placed, and do not yet compete with the colorful socialist realist-syle propaganda posters that line the streets of the capital and praise the ruling Workers' Party or leader Kim Jong Un.
Still, they are a significant departure in a country where state propaganda is supposed to have a monopoly on what ideas are sold to the public.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
North Korea's new ad men try out pitches to new consumer class
PYONGYANG | BY JAMES PEARSON
"Pyongyang Spirit: A drink you won't forget after drinking once", reads the text of an ad for a clear, vodka-like North Korean alcohol.
No country is further from Madison Ave than Soviet-style North Korea, but advertising is beginning to emerge as makers of goods try to pitch products to a rising group of consumers and a wealthy class of citizens.
From whitening toothpaste made from natural ingredients to sea-cucumber snacks that claim to fight cancer and tuberculosis, more goods are being sold in colorful ways to the growing class of "donju", or "masters of money," who generate wealth in a gray market economy that is allowed to operate but is not formally recognized.
North Korean ads are small and subtly placed, and do not yet compete with the colorful socialist realist-syle propaganda posters that line the streets of the capital and praise the ruling Workers' Party or leader Kim Jong Un.
Still, they are a significant departure in a country where state propaganda is supposed to have a monopoly on what ideas are sold to the public.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-advertising-idUSKCN0Y81A2
