South Korea Live Special: Market Review, Marketing strategies, UA channels, Creatives & Top games

uh except and Google and meta and M loveing Unity we have our own marketing channel kako uh neighbor is a portal uh searching uh s and we have a web tune because they are doing some kind of a collaboration the comics and games okay and uh we have a neighbor TV much smaller than YouTube but we have uh we have a like play iio is a Korean version of uh B play okay okay interesting yeah this is no gaming podcast to at a Gamers sharing actionable insights dropping Knowledge from our day-to-day user acquisition game design and AD monetization jobs we are definitely not discussing the latest industry news but having so much fun let's not forget this is a 400 a.m. conference discussion Vibe so let's not take it too seriously [Applause]

start let's start so okay we can do we're doing a very special podcast today uh we're recording live not from Berlin not from Bratislava but from beautiful soul and we're joined here today by two very special guests uh do you guys just want to introduce yourself really quickly okay let's start uh ladies first always ladies first so hello everyone my name is shimi and I have been working uh in mobile industry as a UA marketer uh for last two years and actually I working I have been working in like just mobile a tech for uh totally last six years nice so I'm very glad to uh be here with you guys okay uh into here uh I'm CEO of action fe uh we are mobile game public

based in uh kangnam Soul South Korea I have been uh working in this uh adch and mobile game industry more than 15 years uh today I'm here as a force UA manager after sh uh and as a fan of uh your podcast and YouTube uh it's a huge honor to me and thanks for inviting me yeah thanks for organizing organizing everything yeah so what are we talking about today so it's uh obviously are so in South Korea so we're going to talk about the South Korean market because last you we don't we have no idea what's going on in here it's your first time in Asia even it's my first time in Asia even yeah yeah I know I know yeah so uh we we prepare some slide uh introduction of Korean game market and game industry so K why don't you let start okay so I would like to say it's more about like uh how how Korean marketers who who working

in Mobile gaming Industries see the Korean market so okay let's jump into the like the first slide so before jumping in um um talking about OS and all kind of like gaming markets we need to see the like population of the country yeah so um South Korea population is like 52 million uh and it has actually very impressive mobile penetration rate uh which is 92% uh but compar with uh you can see that Japan and China and their population but uh still uh South Korea has a high mobile penetration rate so uh you can see on the right that um the estimated revenue of video game per country we South Kore has a fourth

largest uh gaming markets number four number four includes mobile and PC and some other platforms Etc okay and Android is number three because of China yeah yeah yes number three Market in the world so then let's talk about like how um the GE geology geography aspect of South Korea yeah uh actually so the the the technical area of Soul uh takes 0.6% of South Korea but yeah and we are uh in very center of Soul now but um only TW um not only almost 20% of population like 10 million people are in Soul actually and kongi is

a satellite city of soul and population of kungi is 15 million which means uh 50% of Korean are living in solung oh how many population ofak countri swed Sweden is 10 and um I want to talk about not only so but also kungi kungi is is kind of Satellite City of soul and it takes um it takes 10 10% area of the country South Korea and 30% of population is living there so sum up so 50% Korean is living here so um as uh we've gone through

the uh Major Avenue of Soul uh you too so actually like um very big digital media in gam Sub Station maybe and kex intersection where your hotel located so it's a Korea is easy to conduct Mass marketing for game um because um you can see that um actually uh I want to say that you two are first time to be in Asia right and Korea is uh homogeneous people they are they are using monolingual and they believe they are all belongs to in the single nation yeah so this is this is great yeah that's correct because we talked about the night cross and yeah yob just showed us some videos how

you do out of home marketing let's yeah let's talk about yeah it's really really interesting because this is something that we you know you don't see Europe asan culture yes so through this slide uh actually we wanted to talk the sense of trending uh the sense of oh this game is trending now it's very significant Point uh when uh when you do mess Marketing in South Korea so uh people so marketer use sometimes um just models idols and you can see like the soccer player song Here me yes this is your grand right yeah and actually uh the company where I work at Grand yeah grandpas is uh kind of cooking simulation game and we we are

not mm RPG but uh we just want wanted to make our um people um we are managing the game we actually use the one of idol right is um so this is when you get the Branded Sushi and stuff like that in the 7-Elevens cuz that's what Remo was telling about yeah yeah yeah yeah she ALS so uh doing some kind of a promotion with some uh convenience store or something right store some uh Supermarket we actually have been having the actual collaboration with FMB Brands yes because uh in terms of Revenue um just um in time management genre except the hospital games uh that kind of stuff um my

leadersh uh have a number one a top Revenue in South Korea so in this General right in this General cooking cooking General cooking time management time and and you you can see also a lot of mmrpg game working with some uh celebrity so how does the the marketing mix look like for like launching a game or something like this so you have out of home and then the I guess the traditional UA like what's the budget split is it more on the out of home or or UA it depends on the game like uh especially uh foreign company like Chinese or they're uh uh more most focus on uh digital and Performance Marketing but some local company uh spending uh like more than 50 50% budget using uh celebrity and out

and uh like TV commercial those kind of things but it depends on the J and their uh if I M RPG then I need to be out of home marketing like uh yeah yeah yeah for like like a big company like Nexon asoft when they launch new game yeah I'm sure that they spend like more than a super huge budget of back up how much back off back off is yeah yeah yeah L huge money yeah spend this kind of things still there are many points of view uh with using this kind of model on their uh gaming marketing cuz um um you can't measure it I can measure it and okay like as a example of grandus we used uh sh Jun as our model and uh we saw that actually

the very initial period of the campaign the CTR and IPM um is very high and it causes like lower CPI yeah but uh eventually um based on the data we could see that um kind of the fandom of of this this model they are likely to click more but the people who are not uh people who are not likely to play our game they they never click uh the game uh because of the model because of the maybe the game is not very interesting from their point of view and for my for my experience like foreign company like uh ples or uh Chinese company like jav they are much focused to buying a local like uh dig digital uh

traffic yeah but Korean company they're more focused uh this kind of straty okay so uh they spent like uh 10 million in a total budget and 50% split for this kind of uh uh TV commercial and celebrity and anything so some of uh this kind of marketing cannot guarantee your rules of course okay but if I if I want to penetrate Korean market and I I want to just do marketing here I guess I need to have a local connection to launch these typ if you have a big title yeah you should have some connection yeah working this kind of okay so let's break into the gaming Market of Korea so um as you can see on the slide uh mobile game Market takes um

like around 60% and we are going to talk about PC Bang have you heard about py bang no yeah okay py bang let's move to the next yeah this is PC bang PC bang means room P room PC Cafe oh yeah but every everyone play mobile at the PC games PC yeah yeah we had those in uh back in the day like not as uh this is strange culture I mean look so we had it like like few years ago like 10 years ago when I was younger now it's it doesn't exist anymore yeah but we P culture is uh still still there right and you see like uh some people they spend like uh 40 48 hour uh just playing playing game and you can eat any

food yeah inside and you can date with your boyfriend or girlfriend amazing yeah I just got very impressive there is a ro [Music] fish yeah yeah it's a it's a actual right actual right yeah okay interesting that's why we are super good at uh professional so let's move into just only mo mobile gaming industry so Android market share is like very big compared with because of Samsung yeah because of Samsung generally so uh but uh the point is that um you can see the like they uses rap uh by their gender and age

group and their uh device yeah here on the right so uh Samsung Market here is uh generally 60 to 80% but uh you can see that more and more like Millennium jet generation they are um they pre they have a strong preference on Apple and using iOS I um so I just addit some mobile game J preference by age and gender gr oh interesting from left side so it's very like uh delicated report so you need to uh compare like which is posard cure like Etc though but some of um yeah to

summarize we can um say that male in their 40 to 50 they have a strong preference on Hardcore game with Android yeah that what we discussed yesterday if you're old you're playing G RPG is looking at you Yak yeah hi um do you know why um male in their 4 to 50 or 30 to 50 they prefer Android phone rather than iPhone you know I also don't know what is the reason yeah idea it's because of the specification so uh High spec High spe of uh uh mobile device right okay because uh most of and and the wide screen okay it could be very uh significant point when you enjoy um your game so yeah and also like 40 to6 age uh

male and female uh more playing uh Android and puzzle and card local card game Lo local card game yeah we have a local card game uh it's a ghosto ghosto MCO yeah Asian traditional C so yeah but not like solitary games or yeah not not similar but different yeah okay yeah and 10 like 10 to to uh 30 age male uh they are having an iPhone and they are playing m hyri either games yeah that's something to discuss more ad monetized Stu yeah so uh for example like uh like hobby the subio uh they're uh higher length uh than uh iOS higher length than Android yeah yeah okay yeah that's be on the way here like younger people just play on their mobile phone and older on PC or console console

so there's one more um one more app store called one store in Korea so one store is kind of like local um store local uh third party and market and Market okay so B based on the amount of uh credit card sales here Google Play is uh still number one big yeah like 80% because MPG yeah but um we cannot P by the the Sal amount of one St as well is it is it growing in the last years or just like stable just stable yes uh it's stable though but they're uh we need to focus on their main users are still 30 to 50 males with hot with high a PPU P users so high L TV

yes and are you also uh working with uh one store video games that was my question like how can you do any UA on that or is it just a additional platform where you yes oh cuz Okay okay I would like to say cooking simulation game we are targeting like female iPhone right it's a bit different so maybe in can yeah one St they have their own marketing channel like uh Google play they have their own uh like browsing when us your brows okay so you can you can put ads yeah yeah yeah yeah but play in all right so let's break into more mobile game like sh always uh like compare with us Japan and

South Korea with their major OS so all including all app okay so when we look at uh us iOS um we can see only nine games in top 20 in terms of IAP revenue for last one year yeah yeah with the same period Japan Android still Android is their main OS of Japan and we can see 20 games takes part uh 80% yeah and Korea Google Play 23 games perfect with 92% yeah that's so clear uh reserved so we are not using dating app we are not watching uh uh Ott we just play the game what's the the first game the yellow yellow one yes a kak kak web okay

there as well they selling sticker the the emoticon sticker uh no they rather um kako page uh provid more web tune based com and we are also very strong culture from Comics yeah yeah interesting yeah yeah you definitely play games yeah and you can see that um this top number one is Lage yeah no surprise surprise so let's look into the um mobile market of Android and iOS of South Korea so here Google play so we can see nine MMO RPG and one

in the top 20 taking 45% there's also Roblox right I see yeah Roblox yes yeah and then gen and for iOS I is different because young people uh they spend more time watching YouTube yeah yeah and uh and well so this is uh just show what what's the difference between Android and iOS in Korea so so let's go back what are all the like the other apps that you have in the green and then the red as well okay green means M okay so oh yeah and that one as well that one is uh com neighbor com okay okay so oh this is a uh you know I AP levenue and download linking but game Jung Android the top 10 yeah so mean uh

yeah so uh most leue come from mmrpg Hardcore like more than 85% yeah but download come from casual and light midore games does it mean that those casual games are monetized more by ads or yes a good question yes uh uh yeah they are also making uh from uh in ad yeah and uh do generally like the Korean people that play games like on mobile do they mind watching ads or do they hate watching ads uh yeah it's uh yeah let's go back to the previous slide like you see uh it's it's hard to see uh Le Leo video when you play mmrpg because they they doesn't want to put uh Banner no into t-sh because they re yeah yeah no reward it because they they they can make uh revenue from in a purchase yeah nice but uh move to the uh hybrid casual

mid core and uh pule yeah they are open to make money from inap ad yeah oh yeah RPG no ads yeah yeah so it's hard to uh do UA uh to uh hardcore game usure because they playing only the game without ad so this is uh kind of a okay they don't want to be interruped by yeah yeah but uh like whales is there yeah well is there yeah I can see this Pik okay yeah let's move to this one uh okay so this is a best foring game player in Korean market in revenue and Google play uh there I can divide the three type of foreign company Chinese company Western company including Europe Russia and uh

American and Japanese uh company but number one is China they are doing everything like uh simulation uh uh hybrid casual uh hardcore game mm RPG and they're also doing uh the puzle and Hyper casual and Valor Legends oh it's they used to build the bridge uh fake icon as well and I guess there it's in the in their gamepl as well it's just really hardcore game I know which one they even used the yeah the one they even Ed the save the dog IC okay yeah but yeah but uh China China companies uh China game company Revenue uh keep increasing in Korean market yeah they are doing great job yeah especially marketing and everything yeah and Western company yeah as you can see uh uh like The Usual Suspects what the usual suspect do you know the

block blast Adventure Master game it's it's growing like crazy recently serious yeah they're doing really really good job on the on the marketing side it's like downloads are increasing and also they're monetizing by with ads only yes yes lenti super high yeah because we are doing similar Jungle of the game yeah yeah and they block the our ad so if you see this please all to show no I we discussed that game to actually uh put bring it on the podcast as well because it's okay yeah yeah it's okay it's okay yeah yeah yeah uh and uh yeah it's your okay uh three three important tip for foring game company to enter uh Korean market one is a localization in Korea because uh you know uh not many people can speak full on English yeah here okay in Korea so uh

English is not even a second language in Korea yeah yeah I think everyone know that so so uh uh every foreign company uh spend a lot of time for uh transation translation strategy for different OS Android and iOS as we explained yeah that's actually that's actually pretty good point yeah yeah and uh marketing channel uh in in my in my experience uh Korean is a Weck of uh uh ad slot and I 11 because of Hardcore game user they never watch and they get angry or so do they get angry if they see ad oh no no no the the the the the game publisher doesn't want to share their traffic to other game to their competitor ah okay so that's why yeah Leverage The Power of loyalty driven UA with missplay users discover a collection of curated games to play based on their interest the more they play the more units they

earn the more they spend on inapp purchases they also earn units can be redeemed for their preferred rewards including a variety of gift cards tapping into our exclusive and growing community of engaged Gamers at a global scale loyalty works for any game in genre and uh like few whale uh user spend huge money that's enough okay so they want to keep them in the yeah yeah yeah uh so uh so when when I've been in uh you know in uh ACH industry as a BD you know to integrating uh our SDK to game uh publish in Korean game publish was too tough yeah because uh Mak a lot of money from in in but now it's different because more and more Korean game publisher want to go diversify yeah diversify loation and Go Global yeah and

like kind of like a 60% 40% I AP and IIA revenue is a good Harmony right so uh and more and and you're also Granda also doing there is a in 64 I8 and 34 I m so now is uh is a not it's a not that difficult to uh show our ad from another uh games that's are beautiful Beau I mean based on my experience if the users they are ready to see ads they are not um being annoyed by seeing ads uh and if the ads with reers they are very welcome to see the uh see mobile ads but sometimes uh for the hybrid casual and uh like light core games

um okay just seeing ads with uh no viewers it it matters yeah seriously some people uh they are playing game to watching ad Val yeah you are kind of exceptional case there we go that and uh in in in and uh you know as we explained that uh Korean is a very strong outdoor and O AG at Market yeah because of high density of population and in Korea uh except Google and meta and anding unity we have our own marketing channel Kaka uh neighbor is a portal uh searching site and we have a web tune because they are doing some kind of a collaboration yeah the comics and games okay and uh we have a neighbor TV much smaller than YouTube but we have uh we have a like play is a Korean version of uh B play okay okay interesting yeah and we have our local

ad Network and chat boosting is uh very normal in in Korea chat Boos okay yeah you yeah yeah because yeah it was like what incentivize CPI trff was very B like like 2015 or still there yeah yeah yeah is it is it working in terms of uh if you get top in in the charts then it kind of pays back because of the organic uplift or like because that's how it worked before yeah it's a good question no guarantee of course but my my experience uh yeah working okay 70% in 70% and 60% yeah how much money do you need to spend to get top okay good question uh Android uh 100K 100K 100K yeah per month or per day uh uh week per week yeah per week yeah yeah oh it's actuallyy pretty much is fraud right so you get up the rank and go so how is

that I haven't done that it's not it's not fraud it's not fraud very good quality traffic inff intens traffic yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's not it's not fraud it's not fraud but it's but there's a lot of CH kicker yeah they download it they just delete it yeah exactly but after after that like top Ling like top one or top two by uh download linking then some people because of oh this is lot of people downloading so makes a lot of uh organic download I have a skeptical point of view on CH listing yeah me too no no no guting but no no guarantee but it's not that expensive 100K is not that expensive yeah different well for a week well then you have 400k per per month for Char boosting with no guarantees like that's you know can be pretty expensive how about iOS iOS uh uh even more money of course much cheaper

really because the algorithm of lanking algorithm of iOS is uh based on last 12 hour 20 hours yeah yeah 24 hours less than 24 hours so much easy I didn't know that okay yeah it's true okay it's easier because then uh you don't need the full week to actually get to the yeah yeah yeah so uh when we do a chat boo chat Linked In in Korea uh us uh we spend uh maybe 3 3K 3K 2 to 3K yeah that's that's easy yeah that's easy that's manageable yeah that's manable okay and uh uh we talk about uh like Korea game industry yeah yeah move to this is very interesting part I think for me it's not interesting yeah a Korean is a Content Power House that uh is called movie K-pop drama and more uh and to oversee

we are very strong and yeah you know uh Korean movie K BTS right uh to uh but games uh takes uh 70% of whole Revenue okay wow yeah but the government doesn't have te oh they don't like okay yeah you know you understand right yeah the government Tred for me for my feeling government try to hide this thing oh we are good at uh uh like like culture content but in actual number games take 70% of whole Revenue wow yeah yeah but uh yeah and uh so I want to share uh then uh and uh we are making uh uh 9 billion in a year from uh local market in Korean and we also making uh 9 billion uh revenue from export oh wow yeah so move to next slide uh so uh Korean game market share in the

world is 7.6% almost like 8% yeah and top 10 export market for Korean game China is number one yeah like almost 45% and then uh uh uh southeast Asia uh North America Europe yeah and Japan Japan okay and nice and in Korea uh there's a lot of game company and I can divide uh two different type game company uh which have focused on Global Market yeah uh like uh uh the red color yeah Nexon Crafton uh yeah the Battleground yeah and N marel also they making uh more than 50 from overse W casino and come to us yeah and there are also uh game company uh make Revenue in Korea local an soft and Kaka now is uh uh yeah there's two different type of

company and uh next slide yeah and because uh I'm a CE of a small and medium siiz uh game company so U I'm I'm happy that last four three years uh more and more success case is comes in uh in the world yeah so this is uh I choose uh 10 different uh games uh who are making uh a lot of download and a lot of Revenue in Global Market not in Korea so uh most of them are ID RPG and ID Tycoon yeah so uh that's why uh I'm quite uh happy and I feel that uh yeah yeah yeah and more like uh like more 14 people are trying to uh maybe uh uh spending time to playing Korean games even mobile and our like ours Korean style RPG game style

yeah I think Legend of fly also help yeah yeah yeah one of the example yeah it's pretty good pretty good game and growing quite nicely also and I know like we discussed that like the Korean games like you're way ahead of like the Western gaming Studios and the studios are kind of taking inspiration from from this Market yeah but uh based on personal experience yeah because of we Island yeah yeah but uh especially European country there's a lot of uh like connection and uh yeah it's true look so I you know I I live in bre I can be in Berlin in 1 hour or anywhere basically in Europe in two or three hours so it's kind of easy to to move there and connect with other people so it's it's nice so just a last slide thank you thank you very much that was pretty good actually we learned up about yeah about

South the different genders and the OS requirements because yeah like out of home marketing like yeah good to know that if you want to break it bigger than South Korea you need to do out of home marketing yeah we already discussed it I didn't believe him though I yeah that's true all right yeah thank you very much for uh yeah bringing this thanks for inviting yeah thank you very much for listening uh subscribe and uh yeah see you see you next time it's difficult right it's such a different culture Clash but I don't know for UA like do you change the creatives if you do VI in Korea or not really just kind of use the same on so yeah I usually do like English um creatives and then if I see a potential in terms of the kpis then we usually but now I think it's it's

terrible idea because as you said like not that many people speak English yeah it's yeah it's not like second language so it's it's kind of hard but you like do players understand like what's going on in the CR I guess they they do right even if it's in English uh yeah most of uh like a big company like King uh playing how of course they are using perfect Korean when they create that's another thing like if you don't use perfect Korean also like like U you don't have to be perfect oh no uh per my opinion is a bit different uh because I see I see you uh when you do marketing and uh try to localize the the language of the creatives you need to be perfect I I think in Korea because uh most of my friends

they weird weird I feel like they hate kind of like bad Korean the the game from CH Chinese game and um kind of the game from different countries so uh they first so when they see the not perfect uh when they see the creative without the perfect Korean uh the very first impression of the game should be uh not good okay okay I mean we I see some hyper casual games with like not even good English and we just laugh about it like oh this is great CU sometimes even hobby they use like Chinese text in West like they don't give a they don't care they don't they don't care they don't care and like we you make fun of it but but I still down game so like that's the

difference okay [Music]