CORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN

Comunicazione Pubblica e D’Impresa

CUSTOMER SERVICE IN THE

SOCIAL MEDIA ERA – THE CASE
OF K-BEAUTY

Tesi di Laurea di: Ludovica Guida

Relatore: Prof. Alessandro Gandini
Correlatore: Prof. Luisa Maria
Leonini
Anno Accademico 2018/2019
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………........................5
1.1 Topic and context………………………………………………………………………...5
1.2 Focus and scope………………………………………………………………………......6
1.3 Relevance and importance…………………………………………………………….….6
1.4 Objectives………………………………………………………………...........................7
1.5 Overview of the structure………………………………………………………………...7

2. Korean culture in the Western world………………………………………………...……8

2.1 The Korean Wave (Hallyu) …………………………………………………………...…8
2.1.1 Development……………………………………….…………………...……8
2.2 The Korean Wave in the Social Media Era – Hallyu 2.0……………………………….13
2.3 Popular culture……………………………………………………………...……….….15
2.3.1 Korean language (한국어)…………………………………………………..16
2.3.2 K-Pop (케이팝)……………………………………………………………..17
2.3.2.1 Introduction to the K-pop industry: The Big Three of K-pop………..18
2.3.2.2 SM Entertainment…………………………………………………...18
2.3.2.3 JYP Entertainment…………………………………………………..20
2.3.2.4 YG Entertainment……………………………………………...……21
2.3.3 K-Drama (케이드라마)……………………………………………………..23
2.3.4 Cosmetics (화장품)…………………………………………………………27
2.3.4.1 History of K-Beauty…………………………………………………27
2.3.4.1.1 Goguryeo………………………………………………..27
2.3.4.1.2 Baekje………………………………………………...…29
2.3.4.1.3 Silla…………………………………………………...…30
2.3.4.1.4 Goryeo Era……………………………………………....35
2.3.4.1.5 Joseon Era……………………………………………….37
2.3.4.1.6 Modern Era……………………………………………...38
2.3.4.1.7 Current make-up tradition……………………………….39
2.3.4.1.8 Korean beauty today…………………………………….40
2.3.4.1.9 Men and cosmetics in South Korea……………………...46

3. Social media………………………………………………………………………………..48
3.1 Facebook………………………………………………………………………………..49
3.3 Instagram………………………………………………………………………………..51
3.3 YouTube………………………………………………………………………………...53

4. Customer service…………………………………………………………………………..54
4.1 From Customer Service to Social Customer Service……………………………………54
4.2 Social Media, Social CRM and Customer Service………………………………………57
4.3 Social Customer Service………………………………………………………………...58
4.4 Online Retailing and the Internet Environment for Customers…………………………..59
4.5 Customer Relationship Management and Social Customer Relationship Management…60
4.5.1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)………………………………..60
4.5.2 Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM)…………………62
4.6 Customer Service, Service Quality, Satisfaction and Loyalty…………………………...65
4.6.1 Service Quality………………………………………………………………65
4.6.2 Customer Satisfaction……………………………………………………….67
4.6.3 Customer Loyalty……………………………………………………………68

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 5. Survey……………………………………………………………………………………....69
5.1 What is a survey?..............................................................................................................69
5.2 Survey structure and types………………………………………………………………70
5.3 Administered survey…………………………………………………………………….70
5.4 Data and methodology…………………………………………………………………..71
5.4.1 Data collection and sampling………………………………………………..71
5.4.2 Pre-test of the questionnaire………………………………………………...72
5.4.3 Data analysis………………………………………………………………...72
5.4.4 Sample characteristics……………………………………………………….72
5.4.5 Identification of key research questions…………………………………….73
5.4.6 Results……………………………………………………………………….74
5.4.7 Considerations on the results………………………………………………..89
5.4.7.1 Are Korean cosmetics known at all by the Italian consumer
population?.........................................................................................89
5.4.7.2 How (in what format) are Italian customers exposed to Korean beauty
products?.............................................................................................90
5.4.7.3 Are Korean cosmetics associated with other Korean cultural
products?...........................................................................................100
5.4.7.4 What channels do Italian consumers prefer to purchase Korean
products from?..................................................................................103

6 Interview………………………………………………………………………………………104
6.1 What is an interview?......................................................................................................104
6.2 Data collection and sampling…………………………………………………………..105
6.3 Data analysis…………………………………………………………………………...106
6.4 Sample characteristics…………………………………………………………………106
6.5 Identification of key research questions……………………………………………….106
6.6 Results…………………………………………………………………………………107
6.7 Considerations on the results…………………………………………………………..115
6.7.1 Actual popularity of Korean products among Italian customers and why…115
6.7.2 Social media and social customer service – a retailer’s perspective………120

7 Experienced difficulties………………………………………………………………………121

8 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….122

Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………….123

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………….……126

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………127

List of figures

Figure 1. Worldwide-famous K-pop band BTS featuring in a LG advert…………….………………13

Figure 2. Friends eating Korean BBQ in the MBC’s drama Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo………14
Figure 3. A family eating in a scene from KBS2’s drama Fight My Way……….……………………14
Figure 4. Girl group Girl’s Generation………………………………………………………………20
Figure 5. Girl group TWICE………………………………………………………………………...21
Figure 6. Boy group Big Bang……………………………………………………………………...23

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Figure 7. Detail from the Susan-ri tomb, Gangseo area, Nampo…………………………………….28
Figure 8. Detail from the Ssangyeongchong tomb………………………………………………….29
Figure 9. Detail of a 7th century Tang dynasty painting……………………………………………..30
Figure 10. Portrait of Jang Ok-Jeong, one of the best-known royal concubines of Joseon…………..31
Figure 11. Celadon cosmetics containers…………….……………………………………………...32
Figure 12. “Hwarang boy”…………………………………………………………………………..33
Figure 13. A depiction of Hwarang in the K-Drama Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth……………34
Figure 14. Depiction of a gisaeng………………………………………………………………………..36
Figure 15. Inlaid celadon cosmetics case from the Goryeo Dynasty………………………………….37
Figure 16. South Korean actor Lee Dong-Wook, face of “Boy De Chanel”……………………..…..48
Figure 17. Model Matthew Bell. …………………………………………………………………….48
Figure 18. The CRM Continuum……………………………………………………………………61
Figure 19. Customer perceptions of quality, satisfaction and loyalty……..…………………………66
Figure 20. PPL in the credits of drama What's Wrong with Secretary Kim?........................................94
Figure 21. A scene from Memories of the Alhambra………………………………………………...96
Figure 22. Mamonde products……………........................................................................................97
Figure 23. A scene from Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo………………………………………….98
Figure 24. Water Bank Moisture Cream by Laneige………………………………………………...98
Figure 25. Nature Republic screen advertising in Piazza San Babila, Milano……………………….99
Figure 26. Nature Republic screen advertising in Piazza Gae Aulenti, Milano…………………….100
Figure 27. Nature Republic screen advertising in Piazzale Cadorna, Milano…...………………….100
Figure 28. Mediheal’s mask collection featuring BT21……………………………………………101
Figure 29. Mediheal mask collection Medihealing with BTS………………………………………101
Figure 30. VT’s first make-up collection featuring BT21………………………………………….102
Figure 31. VT make-up collection The Sweet Special Edition SET featuring BTS…………………102
Figure 32. Nature Republic’s Real Comforting Mask Sheet line………………………………….102
Figure 33. Nature Republic’s Real Comforting Mask Sheet line featuring Exo…………………….102
Figure 34. Exo members about to show how to apply Nature Republic’s Aloe Sun Stick………….103

List of figures

Table 1. Sample characteristics overview (survey)………………………………………………….73

Table 2. Korean cosmetic brands most popular in Italy……………………………………………...78
Table 3. Participant’s Korean cosmetic brands of interest…………………………………………...80
Table 4. Italy-based physical stores selling K-beauty products……………………………………...82
Table 5. Italy-based online stores selling K-beauty products……………………………………….83
Table 6. Comparison between participant’s K-beauty purchasing habits (online-offline)…………..84
Table 7. K-beauty promotion suggestions by participants…………………………………………...86
Table 8. What participants associate South Korea with……………………………………………...87
Table 9. Public figures of Korean nationality listed by participants…………………………………88

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1. Introduction
1.1 Topic and context
In the last few years, social media have become more than just a bunch of websites
where people could connect with friends, family and strangers to exchange messages
and opinions. As these platforms are now commonly used by everyone, companies
and businesses have embraced them for various purposes, such as to become more
accessible to their already-existing as well as potential customers. This is true for
famous and broad entities as well as niche ones.
In today’s society we see customers expecting a lot more from the companies they are
dealing with. The customers’ voice is the main feedback channel, heard by the
company as well. Due to the globalized environment products, prices and relationships
have become transparent; this results in heavy competition amongst companies. For
this reason, it seems that a company has no other choice than adapting the values and
needs from their customers (Boersma, 2016).
This is especially important for e-tailing and for those brands and retailers who are
increasingly opting for an online store rather than an offline one for two main reasons.
1. The expansion potential (reach). This is determined by the increase in
dimension of the potential network of interconnected subjects, which follows
the spread of the internet (Evans and Wurster, 1999). This phenomenon occurs
in a double dimension. On the one hand, it is caused by the increase in the
number of subjects that can be reached by the company, and therefore the
abundance of available options for connection. On the other hand, it occurs
following growth in the potential for relationship density: the internet can
increase not only the number of interconnected operators, but also the
possibilities of activating direct relationships between single subjects.
Conditions are therefore generated for the creation of communities among end
clients, which simultaneously allows for the increase in value generated by the
company for demand. These conditions also allow for inspiration and ideas for
improving one’s own offering, resulting in a shopper–company co-evolution
(Micelli and Prandelli, 2000; Sawhney and Prandelli, 2000);
2. The relationship potential (richness). A secondary effect of the abstraction
potential of electronic commerce, refers to the enormous development of

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 relationship potential available to companies (Evans and Wurster, 1999). These
can potentially acquire the trust of their own clients in a much more effective
manner compared to traditional offline businesses thanks to the possibilities
offered by virtual intermediation to manage relationships directly, or
disintermediated compared to traditional venues, and on an individual basis
(Webster, 1998). The connectivity that characterizes the current markets allows
for these new intermediaries to extend the trust that has been developed with
specific shoppers into new businesses. The possibilities for developing new
activities within virtual environments while leveraging the loyalty of one’s
own shopper base are practically limitless, and they allow for an endless
expansion (also virtual) of one’s own product and service offering that can
potentially be marketed (taking advantage of the sales point’s space-based
element) (Castaldo, Grosso and Premazzi, 2013).

Social media has also been an essential tool for consumers to get to know and keep up
with the latest trends from all over the world. One of these trends is the Korean Wave,
also known as Hallyu.
The Korean Wave (hallyu in Korean), symbolizing the rapid growth of the Korean
cultural industries and their exports of popular culture, started in 1997. However, only
recently has hallyu emerged as a true transnational cultural phenomenon. The initial
stage of the Korean Wave was mainly received in Asia (and, later, beyond Asia); it
began with a few Korean TV dramas, such as What Is Love All About? (1997), Winter
Sonata (2002), and Dae Jang Geum (2003). In the early 2000s, hallyu spread with the
success of Korean films and a few K-pop musicians, such as H.O.T., Shinhwa, and
BoA. However, the presence of these Korean cultural industries in the West was
marginal. The situation surrounding the growth of Korean popular culture has changed
since the late 2000s, when Western fans suddenly started to enjoy K-pop, digital games,
and television programs, including dramas and reality competition shows. K-pop was
not popular in North America until PSY’s “Gangnam Style” became a huge hit in the
global music markets. Social media has played a key role in circulating the local
popular culture in global markets. In fact, transnational popular cultural products
created in non-Western countries are benefiting from the rise of social media, because

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global fans have been enjoying locally produced popular culture on various social
media. Instead of purchasing CDs and DVDs and instead of watching popular culture
on television and in theaters, these global fans use social media, including YouTube
and Facebook, to enjoy popular culture (Jin & Yoon, 2016). Tech-savvy young people
have shifted their habits in consuming popular culture by heavily relying on social
media, which indicates the emergence of social media as one of the most significant
breakthroughs in both circulation and consumption of popular culture (Jin, 2018). A
late product category addition to Hallyu is Korean cosmetics, which is what will be
analyzed in this research.

1.2 Focus and scope

The main goal of this research is to find out what kind of connection could exist
between retailers using social media as means of consumer service and the availability
of content related to the provided products on the Internet, such as with digital
platforms. More specifically, this research will be an attempt to analyze the social
customer service activity of Korean beauty products online retailers towards Italian
customers.
As no previous research could be found about this topic, there was a not a specific time
period the research was aimed to cover; moreover, one of the main goals was actually
to find out a relevant time-span in which the two analyzed aspects of social customer
service and Hallyu 2.0 converge.

1.3 Relevance and importance

Korean beauty is a developing trend, so it is important to gain an in-depth
understanding of its current status among the Italian public. While there has been
previous research on Italian customers approach to Korean cosmetics, none has
focused specifically on how they engage with Italian retailers of said products.
Furthermore, as these products have started entering the Italian market in the last two
years, it is important to expand scholarly knowledge of this contemporary
phenomenon.
This research’s goals are, in the first lane, to provide empirical data and show some
practical examples of social customer service provided to Italian customers by Korean

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beauty. Moreover, empirical data and practical examples about the influence of Hallyu
on Korean cosmetic purchase and of the South Korean beauty industry will be shown.

1.4 Objectives
Starting from her personal knowledge and interest on the matter, the researcher aimed,
through a survey and an interview administered to Italian, to provide the following:
• Gather and analyze quantitative data Italian customers on the current level of
popularity of Korean cosmetics and South Korean cultural products, and a possible
link between the two
• Determine whether the two before mentioned variables are associated with a big
interest/exposition to the purchase of Korean cosmetic products
• Conduct research to gain in-depth insight into how retailers of Korean cosmetic
products interact with their customers and what they do to stand out among their
competitors in order to acquire a view of how social customer service is compatible
with their activity.

1.5 Overview of the structure

Throughout chapter two, not only does the researcher introduce the notions of Hallyu
and the Korean cultural products related to it – K-pop, K-drama, Korean language –
but also tries to provide all useful information for a better understanding of the source
culture – the South Korean culture – which the reader might not fully acknowledge.
For that purpose, Korean cosmetics will be analyzed starting from their origins to their
contemporary status, including a typically South Korean social phenomenon – the use
of cosmetics from men.
In chapter three social media will be introduced, with a focus on Facebook, Instagram
and YouTube, as these are the main social media platforms through which both the
interactions concerning Korean cosmetic products of the participants to the research
survey and of the interviewees take place.
In chapter four, the topic of customer service will be discussed, starting from its
general definition. Then, the following notions will be introduced and explained: social
customer service, customer relationship management, social customer relationship
management, service quality, satisfaction and loyalty.

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 The administered survey and the administered interview will be reported and analyzed
in the fifth and sixth chapters respectively, with a contextualization of both the
participants and interviewees answers in the current purchase and selling status of
Korean cosmetics in Italy.
Finally, the difficulties encountered throughout the writing of this master thesis and
the conclusion can be found in the seventh and eighth chapters respectively.

2. Korean Culture in the Western world

2.1 The Korean Wave

The neologism “Korean Wave” comes from the literal translation of 한류 (written as

“hanryu” but read as “hallyu”): 한 [han] meaning “Korean” as in anything related to

South Korea and 류 [ryu] meaning “wave”. This neologism refers to a global

phenomenon related to the popularity of Korean cultural products not only in other
Eastern countries, but also in the Western part of the world.

2.1.1 Development
The origin of this strong cultural industry, now consolidated, goes back to the
restrictive import policies that the South Korean government launched after the
Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945), with the intention of preventing a cultural
takeover that would undermine local Korean traditions, and in turn, boost local
production and industry without foreign competition nullifying it. It would not be until
2004 that the Korean government would lift all cultural import restrictions. By then,
government investment in local promotion and production, not just culture, paid off,
achieving what is known as South Korea’s "economic miracle" (1945-1996). This
important economic and social development, coupled with the at that time emerging
international globalization, creates the ideal situation for the Hallyu industry to emerge
(Simón Eiras, 2015).
The word Hallyu first appeared during the mid-1990s after Korea entered into
diplomatic relations with China in 1992 and Korean TV dramas and pop music gained
great popularity in Chinese-speaking communities and countries, such as People's
Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. When one of the first

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successful TV dramas, What Is Love?, was aired by CCTV in 1997, it had an audience
rating of 4.2%, meaning that over 150 million Chinese-speaking viewers watched it.
Korean pop music, especially dance music, began to gain popularity among Chinese
teenagers after it was introduced in earnest in 1997 by a radio program called Seoul
Music Room broadcast from Beijing. The decisive moment in igniting Korean pop
culture fever in China was the concert of Korean boy band H.O.T., held at the Beijing
Workers' Gymnasium in February 2000. Korean news reports used the term Hallyu,
or the Korean Wave, in describing this concert. The Korean Wave, acknowledged in
an article published by Beijing Youth Daily as early as November 1999, began to
finally be recognized by Koreans themselves from this point.
Up to that point, Korea was almost exclusively importing only movies and dramas
from abroad, but when a restriction on imports was lifted in 1998, the South Korean
government started worrying about the possibility of Japanese goods flooding the
country, so they decided to strengthen their own media productions. The Minister of
Culture assigned a substantial budget to companies in the cultural industry and
succeeded in greatly improving the overall quality of domestic production (Ryoo,
2009). Korea in a short time became one of the few countries where cultural content
that is produced locally has a bigger success than foreign produced content (KCIS,
2011).
Later, the trend expanded to South East Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand and
Malaysia. It became popular in Japan in 2004, stirring the most interest when the
country’s housewives became completely obsessed with a drama called Winter Sonata.
Eventually it reached other continents, from America to Europe in recent years. The
popularity of the Hallyu in Japan was especially interesting, considering it was the
only developed country at that time to follow the Korean Wave and that, historically,
Japan was the one whose culture was most popular in Asia until that moment (Yang,
2012). South Korea didn’t hold a very positive image in Asia until that moment. It was
mostly associated with political corruption, the war between North and South Korea
and the consequent instability in both countries (Kim, Lee & Chon, 2010). This was
especially true in Japan due to continuous disputes on territory and lingering political
animosity. For the first time, thanks to these TV dramas portraying the lives and values
of South Korea, Chinese and Japanese people were able to see not only the similarities

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Korea shared with their own culture but also the peculiar characteristics the country
had (Yang, 2012). Multiple scholars tried to understand the underlying reason for such
an impressive popularity, and the mainstream opinion about the popularity of the
Hallyu in other Asian countries is to be attributed to racial and cultural proximity
between Korea and the receiving countries.
South Korean dramas were shown to have many aspects of the Confucian culture and
ethics, such as harmony, morality, family and filial obedience, which are common
values for viewers in East Asia embedded in Confucian philosophy (Yang, 2012).
People were able to relate to Korean dramas portraying familiar values more than they
would relate to Western dramas, where individualistic values are stronger (KCIS,
2011). Many though, have argued that this is not enough to fully explain the Hallyu
success in Asia (Yang, 2012). For example, South Asian countries, such as Philippines
and Indonesia, have no direct link to Confucian values, plus they do not have many
cultural elements in common with Korea (Yang, 2012; Ryoo, 2009). This is even truer
today, when the popularity of Korean entertainment and culture has expanded far
beyond the Asian continent. Jung (2009) argues that it is not solely the traditional
Asian values that attract foreign consumers, but that it is the transnational and hybrid
mix between the typically Asian and the typically western cultural aspects that attracts
both sides (Jung, 2009).
Today South Korea is one of the world’s leading exporters, not only of technological
products (Samsung and LG, just to name a few) but also of cultural products, so much
so that the Bank of Korea itself (BOK) attributes the rapid increase in cultural exports
since 1997 to the increase in the popularity of the K-pop in global terms. The “K” as
in “Korean” is used internationally in English (K-pop, K-dramas) to differentiate the
origin of the product, since in the case of Japanese or Chinese cultural production J
and C would be used respectively (J-pop, C-pop, J-dramas, C-dramas) (Simón Eiras,
2015).
Since Hallyu includes this commercialization and export of Korean culture, we can
define it not only as a national phenomenon, but also as an international
phenomenon. The ‘Korean Wave’ craze has expanded to Korean traditional culture,
food, literature and language, creating more and more enthusiasts. A great majority of
Hallyu-related organizations are K-Pop fan clubs, but there are also various

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communities of people who are interested in Korean dramas, food, tourism, and more.
As of December 2017, a total of 73.12 million people in 92 countries joined these
organizations across Asia, Oceania, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East
(Istituto Culturale Coreano). This international dimension of the Korean wave is made
possible thanks to the Internet. The use of official websites and social networks as a
means of promotion and sale is crucial for this industry.
Except in Asia, where television is the main means of access (drama broadcasts, music
programs...), the rest of the geographical areas depend mostly on the internet to access
this content.
There is also a political dimension starring the Korean government as promoter and
later exporter, supporting Hallyu as an industry and disseminating it through the
various media (radio, television, internet...) or the production and publication of tourist
material. In addition to the above, the Korean wave has another important factor; the
fans. Consumers, as in any market, are the mainstay of this industry, but in the case of
Hallyu this market-consumer relationship is much closer and more dynamic. Through
commercialization of the image of idols or celebrities of the musical, cinematographic
or television panorama, and are the main hook for capturing fans. The industry of
fashion, cosmetics and beauty would come into play here. Industries that, through
Hallyu, have obtained great profits and enormous popular attention, especially the
beauty and cosmetic industry. It is in the cinema, television and music that these
industries are promoted, not only fashion and aesthetics, but also new technologies,
where brands such as LG or Samsung do not stop being on the front line.

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Worldwide-famous K-pop band BTS featuring in a LG advert

These last three categories are a powerful marketing tool, since in their content lies the
essence of Hallyu, that is, the representation of Korean culture.
The films and dramas reflect some of the most significant features of Korean society,
that is, the different codes of representation and characteristics that define it, such as
its history, traditions and customs, generational change or social relations, among
others.
The Korean gastronomy and language especially catch the attention of the
international spectator. Korean cuisine continues to gain international popularity
thanks also to the intervention of the Korean government, whose official website
effectively uses the image of Korean artists in order to promote gastronomic
tourism. In Korean dramas and films are abundant and very common the scenes of
meals or family dinners where different dishes of the Korean gastronomy are shown
(Simón Eiras, 2015).

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Friends eating Korean BBQ in the MBC’s drama Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo

Scene from KBS2’s drama Fight My Way, where a son (on the right) has a discussion with his parents
while eating

2.2 The Korean Wave in the Social Media Era – Hallyu 2.0
Since late 2007, the Hallyu phenomenon has experienced a significant shift with the
growth of social media. Korea has made innovations in social media (e.g., Cyworld)
and smartphones (e.g., Samsung’s Galaxy), as well as online gaming (e.g., Lineage

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and Aion), and they become major parts of the Korean Wave. Western-based social
media and smartphones have also taken pivotal roles in spreading out K-Pop and other
cultural genres, because fans in many countries enjoy K-Pop and other cultural
products through social media, referring to a group of Internet-based applications that
build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allow the
creation and exchange of user-generated content.
The Korean creative industries have indeed witnessed a few new engines of growth
since late 2007. With the rapid advancement of broadband services, online gaming has
become a burgeoning cultural sector with global revenues rivaling those of film and
music. Korea exported $102 million worth of games in 2000; however, in 2010, the
country exported as much as $1.6 billion worth of games. During the period 2000-
2010, the export increased 15.7 times. The Korean online game industry has
substantially gained status as an empire in the cultural sector and is one of the most
significant exported cultural products of Korea.
K-Pop has become the most distinct cultural genre in the Hallyu 2.0 era. While K-Pop
was part of the early growth in the Korean Wave, Korea did not make impressive
popularity in the global music markets until recent years. However, K-Pop has been a
driver of Hallyu 2.0 as Korea exported $80.9 million worth of music in 2010, a 159%
increase from 2009. Furthermore, in 2011, the music industry exported $177 million,
a 112% increase from the previous year. Online gaming and K-Pop have been the two
most significant cultural sectors in the Korean creative industries.
While there are several reasons for the tremendous growth of Hallyu 2.0, again, one
of the most significant catalysts has been the rapid growth of social media, as global
media fans use social media to access K-Pop and games. From user-generated content
web sites to peer-to-peer networks, these channels play a central role in global cultural
circulation. With youth consumer groups as central figures, social medias have become
the fastest growing platforms to circulate global cultural products. This implies that
the cultural markets have rapidly shifted, from virtual goods-driven to access-oriented
watching markets, because global consumers watch and play cultural genres through
social media instead of buying cultural goods. In the era of volatile changes in global
creative industries driven by technological innovation and globalization dynamics,

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understanding the role of social media and its impact on cultural accumulation is
crucial.
One of the major drivers for the growth of Korean creative industries and Hallyu 2.0
has been the convergence of multimedia and telecommunication technologies and the
integration of the means by which creative content is produced, distributed, and
consumed in the Hallyu 2.0 era. Korea has harnessed the potential of developing
creative content with new technologies in video games, animation, and K-Pop (Jin,
2012).

2.3 Popular culture

2.3.1 Korean language (한국어)

Korean is spoken by some 77.3 million people around the world, with 50 million in
South Korea. Due to the fact that the interest in South Korea has increased in recent
years in the world, the number of the Korean language learners has been growing. The
number of Korean language departments at universities in China rose from around 20
in 2004 to around 70 in 2009. There are more than 640 Korean language departments
at universities around the world. Thanks to the popularity of Korean culture in Japan,
3,000 language schools or institutes teach Korean there. In Southeast Asia, Central
Asia and the Middle East, there is a tremendous amount of interest in Korean culture
and language. There are 2,100 schools around the world that teach Hangeul, or written
Korean, half of them in the United States (Kim, 2009). Korean learners, under the
influence of the Korean Wave, learn the Korean language through Korean dramas and
K-Pop, or they learn Korean culture and language through Korean distribution
institutes, such as King Sejong Institute, the Hangul School, or Korean Council.
Currently, for those with Korean as a foreign language, like Europeans, TOPIK, which
is divided into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels, is required in order to
enter college or get a job in Korea.
TOPIK is a test to measure and evaluate the Korean proficiency targeting for overseas
Koreans and foreigners who do not speak Korean as their first language. Systems of
the TOPIK are largely divided into TOPIK I and TOPIK II: TOPIK I is divided into
the entry 1 and 2; TOPIK II is divided into Intermediate 1, 2, Advanced 1, and 2, all
of which are equal to the measure proposed in the European common reference

16
standard (Won, 2016). More than 1.6 million foreigners have taken TOPIK since it
was first introduced in 1997 to measure and evaluate one's ability to read, listen and
write in the Korean language. Only 2,692 people sat the test when it was first
introduced by the Education Ministry and the National Institute for International
Education. The figure has shot up to 206,768 in 2015, marking a 70-fold increase.
The number of people sitting for TOPIK hit a record high of 72,295 in April 2016
when it was held concurrently in 45 countries - up from just four countries when it was
first started. TOPIK is held six times a year in South Korea, five times a year in other
countries of the Asian continent, four times a year in the Americas, Europe and Africa.
The Education Ministry attributed the soaring figures to the rising popularity of
Korean pop music, dramas and culture around the world, as well as increased interest
in South Korea as a destination for study and work (Choon, 2016).

2.3.2 K-Pop (케이팝)

Defining K-pop as just South-Korean pop would be simplistic: K-pop is a fusion of

synthesized music, sharp dance routines and fashionable and colorful outfits.
The catchy music in itself could be described as sanitized bubblegum pop with a fusion
of electro, disco, hip-hop, R&B, and rock sound. The genre seems to focus on bands
rather than on solo acts, as the average size of a K-pop band is of 4.47 members for
boys and 4.21 for girls. While the songs are mostly in Korean, a few words of the
repetitive choruses are sometimes in English for more international appeal, and a rap
verse might be included.
K-pop borrows from the Japanese pop culture and the late 90s American pop: Korean
singers are cute and innocent - but project stronger personalities than their Japanese
counterparts - and sexually teasing, - though not as provocative as the American pop
stars in order to appeal to conservative Asian markets (Rousse-Marquet, 2012).
The rise of K-pop or Korean popular music in the global music scene came as a helping
hand to many music fans, commentators, and business people in Asia. The Anglo-
American or European domination of the global music industry has rarely faced
challenging competitors from Asia prior to the sudden K-pop epidemic. PSY’s
“Gangnam Style,” for example, ranked number one in the world in terms of YouTube
click counts, reaching more than 1.7 billion hits as of July 21, 2013. The second most

17
hits recorded in YouTube history by Justin Bieber comes in at just 0.9 billion. Before
PSY’s ascendance as a global pop star, other boy and girl bands from Korea have
enthralled a massive number of young Asian and European fans who rushed to quickly
sold outlive concerts and/ or YouTube for instant and free access to music videos. In
countries like China, where YouTube is banned, young fans relied on alternative social
networking service sites for free music videos from Korea. Girls’ Generation, Wonder
Girls, TVXQ, Big Bang, 2PM, 2NE1, and Rain are particularly popular among a
diverse and long list of young entertainers from Korea who currently dominate the
Asian music industry (Oh, 2013).

2.3.2.1 Introduction to the K-pop industry: The Big Three of K-pop

In this industry, management agencies have an essential role. SM Entertainment, YG
Entertainment and JYP Entertainment – founded by Lee Soo-man, Yang Hyun-suk
and Park Jin-young respectively – are the main actors of the K-Pop industry and are
usually referred to as “The Big 3” because of their strong market shares
and international operations. It was the efforts of the founders of these Seoul-based
music labels who pushed for the international expansion of K-Pop. Their success in
spreading K-pop abroad has benefitted the South Korean economy, international
image and even other lesser-known companies – the profit motive was the key to all
of this.

2.3.2.2 SM Entertainment
The major figure of modern K-pop especially is Lee Soo-man, the founder and former
CEO of SM Entertainment and his successful undertaking in bringing the Japanese
“idol” training and management model over to Korea – where it was copied by other
record companies and is now a characteristic of the industry as a whole. First of all, he
proposed a model which he called “Cultural technology” to export K-pop overseas.
The process of cultural technology itself is a three-step process, of making the trainees
into a ‘jewel’ (Chung, 2011). The three steps of cultural technology are as follows:
1. Obtain trainees, budding K-pop hopefuls from both inside South Korea and
other countries both Asian and Western. Hold widespread auditions and bring the
selected trainees over to company headquarters in Seoul to start their, on average,

18
seven years of traineeship where they will learn to sing, dance, act, sharpen their own
“personal skills” (unique skills or quirks that make them stick out in larger groups,
ranging from imitations of famous media characters to mastery on an instrument) and
learn foreign languages – particularly English, Mandarin and Japanese. This will all
be done alongside attending school, leading to long days with little-to-no personal time.
This process is to build up the trainees’ skills and to, especially, select those who have
the ability to excel in all the aforementioned skills while under the stress of performing
their duties every day. Once a trainee is promoted to a group member, and the group
has debuted, the first step of cultural technology will be their export into international
markets.
2. The second step involves partnering with foreign acts, companies and artists to
collaborate and, thus, increase foreign exposure of K-pop acts and groups. Notable
examples include BoA’s duet with Japanese singer Daichi Miura on the song
Possibility, a track composed by Japanese producer Nao'ymt. Both artists are under
the AVEX company, with whom SM Entertainment collaborate for their ventures in
Japan. This marketing method also sometimes leads to collaborations such as former
Gangsta rap pioneer Snoop Dogg and PSY in 2014 on the single Hangover, a critically-
panned track that featured both artists in the music video drunkenly exploring Seoul
together. The video also featured an appearance by PSY’s fellow YG Entertainment
artist, Big Bang leader and rapper G-Dragon.
3. Partner with other music labels in South Korea to share the recipe of
international success. What was once a near exclusive trait of SM Entertainment, the
rigorous trainee process and hyper-stylised groups and their musical formulae through
collaborations with international producers, designers, songwriters and other talent,
has become commonplace within the K-pop industry in 2016. The international
production teams that SM Entertainment have collaborated with in the past have, once
exposed to the K-pop market, found their way into composing and producing songs
for K-pop acts from other companies. An example of this is the Norwegian production
Dsign Music, who composed Girls’ Generation’s 2013 song I Got A Boy while also
composing and producing 9MUSES’, a girl group under Star Empire Entertainment,
2015 single Hurt Locker.

19
Girl group Girl’s Generation

2.2.2.3. JYP Entertainment

Park Jin-young, or JYP as he has come to be known in the Korean public, is the founder
of JYP Entertainment as well as being a currently-active singer and producer in his
own right. The approach of JYP Entertainment has closely followed SM Entertainment
and Lee Sooman, with popular idol groups stemming from the agency such as boy
groups 2AM, 2PM, Got7 and girl groups the Wonder Girls, Miss A and TWICE. The
agency was founded in 1997 and is one of the big three K-pop production houses and
has been so for the past decade. A major early reason for this is the success of the
Wonder Girls, who were the most popular female group in Korea before Girls’
Generation took that crown starting in 2009. Park Jinyoung’s song-writing and
production style with the Wonder Girls was drenched in Western influences ranging
from 1980s synthpop to 1960s Motown. Another reason was the success of singer Rain,
who was one of the first South Korean celebrities to have a large following across Asia
for both his music and filmography. Debuting as a singer under JYP Entertainment in
2002, he embarked on a successful world concert tour in 2007 that took him around
Asia and the United States – and he became the first Korean artist to hold a concert at
the Tokyo Dome, drawing an audience of 55,000 (Rose and Garcia, 2007). Later the
same year, he left JYP Entertainment on amicable terms to form his own label – but
by this time the Wonder Girls had become the record company’s main draw.

20
Following in the footsteps of SM Entertainment’s Lee Soo-man, Park began to
implement group members from countries other than Korea using global auditions.
Girl group Miss A, which debuted in 2010, consisted of two Chinese and two Korean
members. Another venture, the boy group 2PM, had a Thai member while Got7 had
members of Taiwanese, Chinese and Thai origins alongside their Korean counterparts.
Most recently, he formed the girl group TWICE which has nine members – five
Koreans, three Japanese and a Taiwanese. TWICE’s popularity has taken off across
Asia, with many hailing them as the next Girls’ Generation.

Girl group TWICE.

2.2.2.4. YG Entertainment
YG’s founder Yang Hyun-Suk’s main influence was Western hip-hop. He started YG
Entertainment in 1996. The mainstream success of the brand came upon boy group
Big Bang’s debut in 2006. The group’s five members are now among the biggest
names in South Korean entertainment, transcending the K-pop label with their global
fanbase which is, arguably, the largest in number.
What sets apart YG Entertainment from the likes of SM and JYP Entertainment
primarily is the reliance on in-house songwriters and producers – with the artists who
show promise in such fields being trained and encouraged to take more of a role in
their group’s musical direction. The primarily, and most-cited, example of this in YG

21
Entertainment’s roster is the leader of Big Bang, Kwon Ji-yong who is more-famously
known as “G-Dragon.” Interestingly, he was initially scouted and trained by SM
Entertainment for five years, from the age of eight to 13. He trained under YG
Entertainment for another six years, before debuting with Big Bang in 2006. Interested
in writing rap lyrics from a young age, Yang pushed him to become a lyricist and
songwriter and take the helm of the direction his group would go in. He collaborated
with YG Entertainment’s in-house producer Teddy Park and the two share song-
writing and production credits for a majority of Big Bang’s music. Yang’s approach
with Big Bang is especially unique in the K-pop industry, where idols have little-to-
no say in what artistic decision their group is veering towards.
Big Bang was an anomaly upon debut in the K-pop landscape. The group had two
rappers, three vocalists and very little of the polished look that had become expected
of idols by 2006 – thanks to the K-pop production machine of SM Entertainment and
Lee Soo-man’s emphasis on image refinement. Famously, the group has also relied
less on choreography than other K-pop groups – a trait later shared with labelmates
2NE1. However, due to their deviation from the norm, they found success across Asia
and the West. In an industry where carefully constructed singing and dancing groups
are the norm, Big Bang appealed to those who wanted a level of authenticity from their
chosen favorite idol group. Also, artists from the label take, on average, far longer in
between comebacks than other labels because of the time it takes to compose and
produce songs for release – without the reliance of foreign production teams. PSY, the
Korean music industry’s most recognizable name worldwide, has also been signed to
YG Entertainment since 2010.
What YG Entertainment, however, has not actively pursued is the implementation of
group members who are non-Koreans. While their groups are indeed popular
worldwide, it was not until 2016 when a non-Korean member of a group debuted – a
Thai member of the girl group BLACKPINK. 2NE1, another girl group in the roster,
achieved widespread success in the early 2010s and were seen as a stylistic alternative
to the bubblegum-pop music of Girls’ Generation. The group, headed by leader CL,
gave off the image of self-reliance and independence in their styling and lyrics – traits
that are still not seen amongst the norm in female K-pop groups. CL has debuted in

22
North America under the management of Scooter Braun – who also manages Justin
Bieber.

Boy group Big Bang.

2.3.3 K-Drama (케이드라마)

An appropriate way to describe what K-dramas are is differentiating the two main
macro-genres of K-drama: Saeguk or historical dramas (referring exclusively to
dramas taking place during Korean history) and contemporary dramas. Historical
dramas are typically long, epic dramas with very complex story lines dealing with
contents such as love, betrayal, and deception, with some degree of martial arts and
sword fighting. The average sageuk has around 40 episodes, with many ranging
upwards of 80 episodes or more. On the other hand, contemporary dramas are often
centered on a love story series set in contemporary times put family ties and
relationships in the focus. The kkonminam (Flower Boy) genre in particular, caters to
young women, and focuses mainly on the romantic lives of young adults (Miyose,
2015). Characters are mostly idealised, with Korean male protagonists described as
handsome, intelligent, emotional and in search of "one true love". This has also been

23
a contributing factor to the popularity of Korean dramas among women, as the image
of Korean men became different from that of other Asian men.
Korean dramas are generally classified into mini-series, comprised of 12 to 24
episodes and broadcast twice per week, and daily dramas broadcast five times per
week (Jeon, 2013).
According to A History of Korean Dramas, published by the Korean Drama Festival
Organisation (henceforth KDFO), the first TV drama in Korea is recorded as The Gate
to Heaven, a 15-minute drama produced and broadcast by HLTZ in 1956. Korean
broadcasters began to produce their own dramas in the early stage of broadcasting.
With the opening of the station in 1961, KBS (the national public broadcaster of South
Korea) started to broadcast its first drama, The Friday Stage, which was a serial drama
shown every Friday night. In 1962, KBS produced nine dramas, including a children’s
drama (KDFO, 2009: 9). At that time, TV drama had already attained great popularity
among Korean viewers, and its enthusiastic reception encouraged other television
stations to produce their own dramas. TBC (a South Korean commercial television
station) broadcast its first drama, The First Snow (1964), on the station’s opening day,
7 December 1964 (ibid.: 10). Since then, daily serial dramas have become popular with
Korean broadcasters because they have easily attracted many loyal viewers,
particularly middle-aged women.
The rapid improvement of the Korean economy produced a positive effect on the
development of television dramas. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Korean
economy continually improved on the strength of its export success. As living
standards improved, the number of television owners significantly increased. The
number of television sets in Korea, which was 13,000 in September 1961, had grown
to over a million by the middle of 1972, and in 1979 was recorded at almost six million
(Chung and Chang, 2000: 119). The rapid growth in television ownership accelerated
the popularity of dramas, which mainly depicted the lives of ordinary people, rather
than of the smaller upper class (Kang, 2007: 472).
In the 1960s, the lack of recording and playback technologies such as videotape at
television stations led to a predominance of dramas which were produced live. By the
early 1970s, these poor conditions had gradually improved and each television station
could provide some funding and technology to produce better dramas. At that time,

24
drama creation was totally controlled by each broadcasting station. That is, only the
three terrestrial broadcasting stations could produce their own dramas, with production
staff and actors who were either employees or under exclusive contracts with each
broadcasting station. The concept of independent drama production was not common
until the early 1990s. Joo demonstrates that independent productions produced less
than five per cent of all television programmes in 1995, most of which were
documentaries or factual programmes rather than dramas (1997: 179).
Throughout the 1970s, daily dramas gained increasing popularity among middle-aged
female audiences. Daily dramas are prime-time serials with a consistent cast and a
series of subplots, like soap operas, but that run for 5-12 months. Although focusing
on romantic themes, they also commonly depict family relationships and conflicts. The
main plots of these daily dramas depict the vertical structure of the extended Korean
family, which demands that women sacrifice themselves for the overall happiness of
family members. These dramas, which describe the inferior position of Korean women,
readily attract loyal female viewers.
Although many daily dramas were produced in the 1970s, other drama genres, with
the exception of melodramas and historical dramas, were quite rare for two reasons;
first, as described in Chapter 1, the strict intervention of the autocratic Park regime
prohibited broadcasting stations from producing dramas with political or social themes
(Chung and Chang, 2000: 106): in fact, several dramas dealing with these topics were
forced by the MOI to go off the air in the 1970s. Secondly, the Korean drama industry
did not have sufficient technology, funds or experience to produce genre dramas such
as science fiction or action dramas. In general, there was a heavy reliance on imported
genre dramas, with US action series in particular being popular (Joo, 1997: 178).
However, most US dramas were broadcast in off-peak hours, and the prime time of
the three terrestrial television channels was generally filled with domestically
produced daily dramas and weekly melodramas. Straubhaar shows that the domestic
programme share of Korean prime-time broadcasting had increased from 73 per cent
in 1962, to 80 per cent in 1972 and finally to 89 per cent in 1992. By comparison, the
proportion of US prime-time programmes decreased from 27 per cent in 1962 to five
per cent in 1992 (Straubhaar, 2001: 46).

25
Regardless of several political upheavals, such as Park’s assassination and General
Chun’s coup, the domestic economy of Korea continued to improve throughout the
1970s and 1980s, leading to the expansion of both international and domestic
advertising on television. This in turn led to a general expansion of the television
industry’s capacities. Advertisers have clearly preferred dramas because of their great
popularity, and this preference has led to more competition among stations for higher
drama viewing rates.
In the 1990s, drama viewing rates became a matter of primary concern for television
stations, with an emphasis on the commercialization of television dramas. After the
termination of the second military government in 1992, government censorship
virtually disappeared. As a result, dramas were able to cover previously taboo topics
such as the Gwangju massacre and the second military coup led by Chun in 19801.
Additionally, some were filmed on location in foreign countries, which resulted not
only in shorter production times, but also in a series of stories with better scripts and
pictures (Kang, 2007: 625). By contrast, ‘anti-communism’ dramas, continually
broadcast mainly on KBS in spite of a lack of audience interest, were finally removed
from the television broadcasting schedule (KDFO, 2009: 15).
In the process, 12 to 24-episode mini-series became the norm of Korean dramas,
overtaking the daily serial dramas which often played for more than a year. With the
change, Korean dramas were able to consolidate story-lines in a small number of
episodes. With technical development, the expansion of themes and the adoption of
mini-series seem to have helped to improve the overall quality of Korean dramas.
Simultaneously, production of high-budget serials gradually increased.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Korean dramas became viable export products in
line with the overall improvement in entertainment quality. The first drama exports
started in the early 1990s, mainly to the cable channels in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The early exports did not achieve particularly prominent results. The flow of Korean
dramas to the East Asian market began after the popularity of What is Love All About?
(MBC, 1991-1992), which was broadcast on CCTV in China in 1997. Since then, the

1
The Gwangju massacre refers to the many people killed during an uprising in Gwangju, a city in the
southern part of Korea, in May 1980. Citizens rose up against Chun’s military coup but were ultimately
crushed by the army.

26
popularity of Korean dramas has become concentrated in Taiwan, China and Japan,
increasing significantly every year (Shim, 2008: 24-26).
To sum up, the history of Korean television drama shows fluctuations between
commercialism and political control similar to those in the television industry in
general. It is significant that the creation of Korean dramas has mainly been stimulated
by domestic factors, rather than by the influence of the Western broadcasting industry.
Imported dramas on the terrestrial networks have always remained in the minority and
have shown a steady decrease. Instead of buying expensive Western drama serials,
Korean television stations, which did not have sufficient budgets, sought to apply
Western or Japanese drama formats to Korean dramas. As a consequence, it is likely
that the Korean drama industry succeeded in creating a distinct drama style, which has
captured the emotions and feelings of primarily female audiences. However, Korean
networks were not able to create science fiction or action dramas due to the lack of
funds and technology. Rather, Korean dramas have tended to focus on limited popular
genres such as so-called ‘trendy’ dramas, melodramas and historical dramas. The strict
controls imposed by the military governments, prohibiting politically or socially
related themes, also contributed to the tendency for Korean drama producers to
concentrate on limited genres (Jeon, 2013).

2.2.4. Cosmetics (화장품)

2.2.4.1 History of K-Beauty

In Korea, appearance of makeup started to emerge during the years of the three
kingdoms Goguryeo – matching with today’s North Korea, and the Northern and Central
regions of South Korea –, Baekje (matching with today’s South Korean South-Western region
– and Silla – geographically matching with today’s South Korean South-Eastern region (B.C.
37 – A.D. 668).

2.2.4.1.1. Goguryeo
When the people of Goguryeo gathered during official public ceremonies, they
decorated themselves with silk and gold, and in particular, masters and housewives
wore headscarves.
Also, as the records of the Chinese historical text Hu Han-Seo (also known as

27
Portrait of Jang Ok-Jeong, one of the best-known royal concubines of Joseon, by Shin Yunbok.
Photo courtesy of The Academy of Korean Studies.

During the Silla Dynasty, the use and manufacturing techniques of white powder were
considerable. It has been recorded that a Buddhist monk was given an award in 692 in
Japan (the 1st year of King Hyoso's reign) because he made face powder. This shows
that in Silla, the manufacture of face powder became common before 692.
The traditional white powder was made grains powder, such as rice and millet, or
powder of powdered flower seeds, white clay, talc or powder made of pulverized
fossils. Because of its weak adhesion and spreadability, the powder was not only
complicated to use but also hard to apply. For this reason, people used to shave their
face fuzz with tweezers or raw cotton before applying the powder, dipping the white
powder into the water and then sleeping for a while (20 to 30 minutes) after the
application. Later, a lead-based chemical treatment was created, which improved the
adhesion of the white powder and made it easier to spread. Therefore, the manufacture
of white powder has been considered a breakthrough in the history of the development

31
of cosmetics.
The Silla people also decorated their cheeks and lips with red make-up, which was
made of safflower. Other than the red make-up, there were eyebrow pencils, which
was made from wood such as hard oak and nutwood into a plush to draw eyebrows.

Celadon cosmetics containers, Koryo period (A.D. 918-1392), Coreana Cosmetics Museum, Seoul

Silla jewelry was diverse and very colorful at the same time. In addition to gold, silver,
and jade, earrings, necklaces, rings and bracelets were made from a bamboo, ivory,
bronze, or wood, and various accessories were added to belts to enhance their beauty.
As such, various high-quality cosmetics were developed during the Silla Dynasty and
high-level cosmetic techniques existed because the Silla people's unique sense of
beauty, or Yeonggyukchi, was formed.
According to Samguk Yusa (in English: The History of the Three Kingdoms) – a
collection of legends, folktales and historical accounts relating to the Three Kingdoms
of Korea as well as to other periods and states before, during and after the Three
Kingdoms period – Park Hyuk-Geo, Silla's first king, was a handsome man with

32
beautiful features. His body was said to have glowed when he was bathed in
Dongcheon (a stream in Pusan, South Gyeongsang Province).
Al-Young, queen and wife of Park Hyuk-Geo, was exceptionally beautiful, her lips
were said to have the same defects as the beak of a chicken, but when she was bathed
in Bukcheon (a stream in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province), her beak fell and
became a perfect beauty.
These records on Silla's first king and queen demonstrates that Silla people were leaded
of men and women who combined wisdom, courage and beauty.
For this reason, both Park Hyuk-Geo and Al-Young reinforced their image as leaders
through the means of bathing, which is believed to mean that both of them were
“beautified” through it, or that in the case of Al-Young, she was “beautified” through
surgery thanks to bathing.
A further proof of the sense of beauty in Silla is the importance given to the Hwarang,
also known as Flowering Knights and Beautiful Man (from "Hwa" – flower – and
"Rang" – knight/man), who were an elite warrior group of male youth in Silla. There
were educational institutions as well as social clubs where members gathered for all
aspects of study, originally for arts and culture as well as religious teachings stemming
mainly from Korean Buddhism. They wore makeup, jade rings, bracelets, necklaces,
jewelry, and other accessories and dress up beautifully, which made them beautiful
men.

Kim Kwan-Chan (645 - 660), “Hwarang boy”, son of General Kim Pum-Il.

33
A depiction of Hwarang in the K-Drama Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth aired on KBS2, 2016-2017

These men, as well as Park Hyuk-Geo and Al-Young, made the Silla people believe
that exterior beauty reflected one’s inner beauty.
As a result, in addition to the use of cosmetics, people of Silla prioritized a clean body,
neat clothes, and beautiful garments.
It is said that the introduction of Buddhism also greatly influenced the culture of makeup and
cosmetic products in Silla. The Buddhist doctrines sanctified incenses, always using them during
religious ceremonies and they also put great emphasis on the act of bathing as purification.
Because of these ideas, the popularization of perfumes and incenses and of baths increased.
Buddhism was practiced not only in the Silla Kingdom, but also in the Baekjae and Goguryeo
ones. Nevertheless, the idea of cleanliness was especially strengthened due to the
emphasis put on purifying baths. In other words, it was thought that the soul could be
purified only through bathing frequently and keeping the body clean.
People of Silla installed bath facilities in both Buddhist temples and their houses
according to both their personal aesthetic sense and the Buddhist doctrine, in order to
keep at the same time their bodies and minds clean. As a result of this, bathing
products developed as well: red beans, green beans and walnuts were mixed with rice
bran and made into soap.
The idea of purification baths often led to the change of the idea of bathing itself. It
became recognized that bathing was not a mere act of cleanliness to get rid of the
body’s dirt but a sacred ritual to wash away one’s sins of the mind. Therefore, taking
baths became not only a practice to be performed only before temple events but in all

34
events and prayers that required a revered and solemn atmosphere in order to release
their emotions and find peace. The use of incense was also part of the Buddhist rituals
because of the Buddhist belief that the Nirvana could be reached through the use of
incenses. It is not surprise, then, that Silla people manufactured perfumes and spices.
Perfume (different from today's perfumes, which are made from dissolving spices in
alcohol) was obtained by squeezing the flavoring substance, which could be either
flower oil obtained by pressing the petals in oil, or flowers and minerals dissolved in
oil.
Scented stems, leaves and roots of aromatic plants were dried and ground out or cut
down into small pieces; scents made of parts of minerals and animals in solid or
powder form were also widely used.
The most common method of using perfumes was smoking incense in a burner. In
addition to using perfumes and spices for religious and ritual ceremonies, Silla people
also used it in the master’s bedroom when praying and pledging. Furthermore, it is
believed that Silla people orally administered incense. Finally, a perfumery bag with
spices was worn on the garments’ right side of the waist from any man and woman in
Silla, regardless of their age or social status. This comes from the fact that Buddhism
was not a religion aimed at one specific type of person; instead, it embraced all men
and women regardless of their status, claiming to save all making and therefore incises
and perfumes, as well as herbs and spices, were used by everyone, indistinctively (Jeon,
1995).

2.2.4.1.4. Goryeo Era

After the unification of the three kingdoms, there came Goryeo (918 – 1392 B.C.), where the
culture of makeup reached its peak. A lot of the makeup skills and its products were passed over
from Silla and started to develop from it. What is special about Goryeo is that it is the first
country in Korean history to have promoted and taught about makeup. It is said that the first king
of Goryeo, TaeJo Wang Geon, ordered that Gisaengs (who served the king inside the palace) be
taught how to properly wear makeup and the etiquette that followed it.
People have differentiated their makeup looks based on their social status at a particular
time. Gisaengs who always have to wear makeup due to their job wore comparatively heavier
makeup than the average, called bundae. They applied hair oils to make their hair appear shiny,

35
and white face powder to make their complexion look paler with contrasting vivid red make-up
on the lip and cheeks. Eyebrows were thin and drawn in semicircular shape. On the other hand,
average women preferred less makeup without the use of color on their cheeks and lips (Yun,
2017).

Kim Hongdo, Seoul National Museum

In addition to the social influence that encouraged using makeup, the development of celadon
and the mirror also greatly contributed to its popularity. During the nearly five centuries
of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), celadon constituted the main type of ceramics
produced on the Korean peninsula. This exquisite ware typically appears gray-green
in hue. The color of Goryeo celadon owes much to the raw materials—specifically,
the presence of iron in the clay and of iron oxide, manganese oxide, and quartz
particles in the glaze—as well as to the firing conditions inside the kiln. Goryeo
celadon ranges from a plain, undecorated type to objects with incised, carved, mold-
impressed, or inlaid designs, and to vessels embellished with colorful compounds like
iron oxide (black or brown) and copper oxide (red), and also with gold (Lee, 2003).
The advent of celadon soon led to production of different commodities used in people’s daily
lives. A lot of the makeup containers were made with celadon. Skillful Goryeo people also made
themselves a mirror based on the skills learned from China. Soon enough, the technology
developed so that mass production was possible. It was soon dispersed to people and allowed

36
the makeup culture in Goryeo to flourishment.

Inlaid celadon cosmetics case from the Goryeo Dynasty at the exhibition Inspired by Nature, the
Traditional Cosmetics of Korea hosted by the Korean Cultural Center UK

2.2.4.1.5. Joseon Era

On the other hand, the makeup culture of Joseon was simpler and more plain compared to that
of Goryeo. Compared to the social tendency to promote a luxurious appearance, Joseon (1392
– 1910 B.C.) emphasized inner beauty rather than outer beauty, a ruling ideology rooted in
Confucianism. It was even banned to wear extravagant garments or heavy
makeup. Bundae makeup, popularized among gisaengs in Goryeo was also thought of as “too
much” or inappropriate. Thus, the makeup looks in Joseon were very confined to its natural
appearance. The brows, skin, cheeks and lips all had to look “natural”. If the before and after
makeup the on a person looked vastly different, it was considered despicable.
While the makeup trend in Joseon was simpler than that of Goryeo, that didn’t necessarily mean
women at the time didn’t wear makeup at all. In fact, while the overall look is still natural,
women in Joseon focused on keeping their skin clear and their look natural yet put together.
They made themselves a lotion to keep their skin moisturized and applied honey mixed with its
residue as a facial mask. According to the book Gyuhap Chongseo, a compendium of advice
for women written by Yi Bingheogak in 1809, there were a number of ways to style one’s
hair, ten ways to draw one’s brows, and several ways to apply lip makeup. It is noticeable that
the book was read mostly by average Joseon women, not gisaeng or yangban (people in higher
social class).
While most of the makeup products were hand-made in homes, makeup industries and its
market started to emerge in the later period of Joseon. According to the records, there were
separate makeup stores in markets and merchants who visited homes to sell makeup or hair
products. In the painting called Taepyung sung sido which depicts scenes of people’s daily life

37
during the Joseon era, it is interesting to spot stores selling accessories, combs, and mirrors.
Compared to the mirrors made in Goryeo, mirrors made in glass were imported from countries
like Russia or China and became more popular as it was much lighter and clearer. A lot of people,
usually men, would buy their wives a mirror as a gift if they have a chance to travel to China
(Yun, 2017).

2.2.4.1.6. Modern Era

The cosmetic industry faced a turning point on August 15, 1945, celebrated nowadays
as Liberation Day. Through the withdrawal of the Japanese, who had almost
completely monopolized the production and sale of cosmetics, the cosmetic industry
faced a decrease. The production of cosmetics had already shrunk due to the shortage
of supplies suffered for a few years before 1945, and at that moment it shrunk even
further. After Korea's liberation from Japan's colonization, production of raw materials
for cosmetics wasn’t being carried out, imports were difficult, showing a temporary
regress. The Korean War in 1950 made the cosmetics industry shrink again. On the
contrary, the import of products and smuggling of PX products increased (PX, post
exchange: a retail store on an army installation that sells goods and services to military
personnel and their dependents and to certain authorized civilian personnel). Because
of all of this, Korea’s cosmetics production wasn’t in full swing until 1960. Changes
in make-up methods also appeared, though there were more changes in regard to attire,
accessories, hairstyles and so on rather than make-up. This was due to the fact that
already from 1920, under Japan’s colonization, Western trends already started
spreading through newspapers and magazines as part of Japan’s modernization
program.
The biggest change in cosmetics since the Liberation from the colonization was the
subdivision of cosmetics uses. Starting from 1960 the demand for liquid foundation
increased, while the consumption of varnish-type of creams and powder decreased. In
addition, the style of Yeonji Gonjis (round red cheeks) changed: instead of red make-
up on the cheeks, actual red stickers started to be used and they still are to this day.
Cosmetics have now become a daily necessity, not a luxury, and in most countries,
they are not seen in a bad light.

38
The cosmetics industry has been recognized as a precision chemical and high value-
added industry and is supported by state-run companies in France and the United States.
As a result, cosmetics from these countries are dominating the world. Furthermore,
Korea and Japan are the only two countries in Asia that have their native cosmetic
companies.
In 1999, the Cosmetics Act was revised in order to promote the cosmetics industry,
while promoting the development of functional cosmetics 2 . However, despite
globalization, women in South Korean keep preferring some specific kinds of make-
up and aesthetics. The white skin trend is still remaining, so they try not to tan in the
summer (the sale of whitening cosmetic products is still high), the three-dimensional
makeup (contouring) is mainly popular and used by young women while the mid- to
long-age women still prefer to focus on skincare while using a make-up that enhances
one’s natural beauty. Meanwhile, the idea of men getting plastic surgeries has steadily
expanded, increasing the consumption of cosmetics, and the consumption of hair and
body care cosmetics has also shown remarkable growth. (Jeon, 1995).

2.2.4.2. Current Korean make-up tradition

Koreans have always had a favorable view of white skin; having an ideology of life
that venerated beautiful men and women, great importance was also given to
cleanliness. This led to a development of make-up and cosmetic products starting from
the Three Kingdoms period. However, the make-up tendency in this country has
always been towards a light-tone type of make-up. There are many cultural and
economic reasons involved but the most relevant motif is related to the fact that there
was a lot of emphasis put on cultivating natural beauty while refusing the idea of
changing oneself into something else, using a stronger make-up. This type of heavier

make-up, called 야용 (冶容 – Ya-yong), that literally means “the act of sexing up”,

started becoming popular only after 1970 and it is still regarded with a bit of
reserve/resistance. Following this idea, impeccable beauty is only thought to be that of

2
Functional cosmetics refer to products that aid in brightening skin, improving wrinkles in skin, tanning
skin gently or protecting skin from sun’s ultraviolet radiation, are subject to more stringent evaluation
than general cosmetics (Shen, 2016).

39
having clean and bright skin. However, the people of our country always wore a formal
attire, that included make-up, when going out. This habit is believed to have originated
from the Goguryeo period, when people always wore silk clothes during public outings
and events embellished with gold and silver jewelry. This tale from the Joseon dynasty
also supports this theory. The husband of a married couple used to spend a lot of time
in the red-light district of the city and it looked like he hated spending time with his
wife, preferring the company of beautiful dressed up gisaengs and once even abused
his wife at home. After that episode, the wife decided to stop working and brushed her
hair, put make up on and changed into new clothes. When her husband, who was sitting
on the floor, saw his wife’s new look he was surprised and asked for a reconciliation,
also saying that they would grow old together. Following this tale, it shows that
dressing up for public events was essential for people even in extreme situations such
as domestic violence. Nowadays too, people of all sex and ages, with no exceptions,
differentiate between clothes that are meant to be worn at home and clothes and shoes
for outings, and they tend care quite a lot about how they dress when they go out. In
addition, the difference in the use of attires, make-up style, accessories and hairstyles
according to the social status and sex – already existing in other countries, is becoming
prominent in our country as well. Since the Goryeo Dynasty, there has been a
stereotype that women who wore strong make-up worked as gisaengs while women
who wore light make-up were well-mannered women living in residential areas, and
this stereotype still lingers until this day (Jeon, 1995).

2.2.4.2.1. Korean beauty today

Riding on the back of K-drama and K-pop, the Korean beauty industry has witnessed
an unprecedented level of growth that has rarely been seen in any other industry for
the past several years. As South Korea is setting a foundation with their culture through
dramas, music and cosmetics, many western companies try to invest in leading Korean
brands, as more and more consumers of Korean cosmetics increase gradually. It is
noticeable that “the rise in popularity of K-pop culture and soap opera across Asia
Pacific has [also] helped South Korean brands expand beyond their home market”
(Kim, 2015). One of the famous actresses in South Korea, Jeon Ji Hyun sparked a
buying craze after her drama “My Love From Another Star” with a lip oil that is said

40
to deepen the “bitten-lip” look – also known as “gradient lips”, it consists of wearing
a darker color on the inner part of both lips and lighter color (if any) on the outer part
– during the year of 2014 (Chu, 2015). Big cosmetic makers such as AmorePacific
Corporation, owner of the Innisfree brand, has experienced a fourfold increase in
market capitalization since the beginning of 2014 (Cheng, 2016). This recent boom on
Korean cosmetic sales became a goal for a lot of investment companies to make
business with, since sales forecasts leads into a much larger profit incentive for major
stakeholders. Especially that Korean cosmetics exports has been increasing on a 36.9
percent average since 2011, many Korean companies are getting a lot more
international businesses and relationships, such as Dr. Jart+, whose international sales
account for around thirty percent of their overall sales (Arirang News). Certain
products, including Dr. Jart+, such as Too Cool For School, AmorePacific and Tony
Moly, are sold in Sephora within their skincare aisles. Sephora is a big retail store with
thousands of customers testing out and buying expensive skincare and makeup
products, needless to know where the products came from, people trust Sephora to
present legitimate and working cosmetic products. As a matter of fact, it was not until
recently that Sephora has finally added a “K-beauty” section on their website; and this
can be seen as a sign of the increasing import of Korean cosmetics into the United
States.
A lot of Americans use BB creams on a daily casual basis. It is known that South Korea
originated the wide use of BB creams. BB creams are like tinted moisturizers with SPF,
and other added properties, ranging from primers to serums. Although BB creams were
first developed in Germany, years later, Korea made BB creams a big deal throughout
Asia, until it spread it popularity to the United States market. But before its release to
the US, BB creams had to go under several changes before it can make its appeal to
Western consumers (Beautilish). South Korea appeals to people with light Asian skin
tones rather than including those people with darker complexions. Companies, like
Garnier and Maybelline, needed to develop more shades in order for BB creams to
have market value in other countries. Similarly, the cushion compact foundation has
the same issue as BB creams; both of the products were limited to light Asian skin
tones before its spread in popularity within Western nations. In brands such as: Etude
House, Missha, Hera, The Face Shop, Clio, etc., people can still see how limited the

41
foundation shades are; they are limited to the point wherein women would be
disinterested in the product being sold in Western countries. Noticeably, big beauty
companies like Chanel, Lancôme, and L’Oréal, also launched a cushion compact
foundation in American markets. Meaning, both the cushion compact foundation and
the BB creams has proved its relevance in the market, in observation between the
Korean and other East Asian markets, as it makes way into the Western market. Both
of the products are convenient to use and are deemed perfect on busy young women,
however the initial users of the cushion foundation in Korea and some of Asia still use
this trend despite some “how-to-hygiene” issues that were later solved by Korean
beauty experts on YouTube. This makeup trend has been in the US market for over a
year now, and sites like Teen Vogue has been encouraging women to use cushion
compacts as part of their beauty routine. Its popular use and expansion all over the
world has encouraged other large international cosmetic companies create shades that
will sell on western markets, and some eastern markets. Ever since, the market for
cushion compacts has been expanded and implemented on a lot of American stores
ever since its release in Korea, as more people find use for the product.
Korea’s pop culture is at a “[set] pace for global beauty” (Cosgrove, 2016). And within
recent years, the United States has been slowly adapting into more than just Korean
cosmetic products, but also Korean cosmetic preferences such as having, flawless,
dewy skin, and the “just-bitten” lip look. In 2013, NYMag, posted an article about
“How to Get Shower-Radiant, Dewy Skin” inspired by Korean celebrities who used
the dewy look to look radiant all day as if they were not wearing makeup (Hou, 2014).
Unlike the American counterpart of having matte skin, Korean’s wear their makeup
keeping in mind that they should look as natural and radiant as possible, without giving
the idea that they are totally made-up. The just-bitten make-up look was made to
prevent Korean celebrities from looking too bold in dramas. This particular lip look is
used to make lips appear smaller, or just give a touch of color to the lips without
looking too fierce for the day. Drugstore brands like Maybelline, Revlon and L’Oréal,
along with BB creams and cushion foundations, also created “just-bitten” lip products.
Even larger companies like Estee Lauder, Lancôme and Laneige are now offering,
although more on the skincare side, products like sheet masks, and fermented products,

42
since many Korean companies like Tony Moly, Etude House and Holika Holika are
gaining global recognition, they must keep up with the pace (Marie Claire).
Many of the large cosmetic companies such as Maybelline and L’Oréal, are adapting
into the “new” influence that Korean beauty products is having around the world.
Maybelline has a product called “Color Blur”, which is used to create a gradient lip
effect – a very popular trend in South Korea. As well as L’Oréal which included
cushion compacts into their True Match line. All international companies share a large
global market, and they have noticed Korea’s wave on the cosmetic industry and how
consumers are beginning to use Korean-made beauty products on a daily or preferred
basis. Korea and Japan, being the two East Asian countries that share similar ideas
towards skincare, has shown their growing dominance in the global skincare industry
through marketing exotic Asian products and trends. Although Japan has established
brands like Shiseido “[to help] popularize anti-aging ingredients”, South Korea is now
seen as a fast-emerging “’center for innovation in the [skincare] industry’”,
approaching half of all global skincare sales (Chu, 2015). Based on this statistic, many
of the Western cosmetic companies have launched products with east Asian-based
ingredients. For example, The Body Shop has an extensive collection of products
based on Asian ingredients such as green tea, lotus, cherry blossoms and satsuma
mandarin. Along with careful marketing and packaging of each of the products, these
companies are actually getting a profit by emphasizing the Asian origin of these
ingredients, which attracts customers that are beginning to incline towards Asian
beauty products. There are also companies that are inspired by South Korean trends,
such as Lisa Eldridge, the creative director of Lancôme, was “blown away by the
technology and enhancements in makeup [in Seoul]”, and brought back the idea of
cushion compacts for Lancôme to release in the Western market (Chitrakorn). Not
only investors are putting their money into the Korean cosmetic industry, but even the
western cosmetic companies are fascinated with Korean makeup trends and
technology. However, it also does not mean that Korean companies are falling behind
in the race of marketing their own products.
YouTube can be seen as one of the primary marketing platforms that newly-debuted
Korean cosmetic companies are using in order to catch some customers. Many
Koreans use YouTube as their primary source of business through showcasing

43
different Korean skincare and makeup products to viewers and followers. YouTubers
like PONY, bubzbeauty, heyitsfeii and meejmuse, to name a few, are people who
started with Korean-style-makeup how-to videos and other similar tutorials, until to
such a point where companies send them products to review on, just like what Michelle
Phan did before she started her own makeup line. These YouTube people got really
famous in the Korean makeup industry; they are associated with companies based here
in the United States that sell Korean products. Memebox is a company headquartered
in San Francisco that makes Korean cosmetics readily available in boxes containing
various products, whether it may be skincare, makeup or both, are sold for less than
the total cost of the combined products. In addition, the rise of Korean pop culture in
Los Angeles has been growing immensely over the past few years. PONY, a Korean
makeup artist, made almost two million subscribers after going independent from
OnStyle, another Korean YouTube channel, and developing her own makeup line
under Memebox, being sold out within two days of sale in KCON 2016 held in the
Los Angeles Convention Center. Different YouTubers who widely use Korean
cosmetics are invited to KCON to meet fans and give live tutorials; they are invited by
companies who represent Korean pop culture like Memebox and Soompi. KCON
holds different cosmetic booths within the convention, making way for profit, with the
thousands of people lining up to get their hands on readily available and within-reach
Korean cosmetics. And this encourages more investors of the Western market to do
business with Korean companies to gain profit in the United States, also in Europe.
Different western beauty companies needed to make changes with to match the use of
cushion compacts and BB creams in western countries. The cushion compact for
example, the variety of shades has drastically increased over the past years since its
release in Korea in order to increase its market to consumers with different skin tones.
The Korean market only sold shades for lighter skins, since they value pale, but
somewhat healthy-looking skin in their culture. This culture, however, had a popular
expansion all over the world that has encouraged change in other large international
beauty companies for western markets. K-pop has a tremendous influence on makeup
users, they are a major influence in the use of Korean cosmetics aside from other
Korean celebrities. Korean pop music artists are known for their flawless, fair skin,
and eye-catching nature. A lot of people in the United States are getting into K-pop,

44
as seen in KCON New York and Los Angeles, as well as in YouTube, where views on
Korean pop bands have large amounts of viewers. It was recently known that the
aforementioned makeup artist, PONY, is the makeup artist of CL, a Korean singer
making her way to debut in the United States. However, there are still a little number
of Korean products that are sold in the United States, partly because Korean beauty is
not for everyone. Since Koreans value light skin, most of the shades are limited to
those with fair skin to begin with. Not all of the women in the market have very light
skin, especially in the west, where not all consumers would not prefer super lightened
skin. Koreans still stand strong on their skin-lightening products for Asian women in
general in order to match their skin tone with the shades of foundation or BB cream
available in the market. In contrast to western beauty culture, Asian beauty culture
values having light skin, or would like to have light skin. However, this does not work
for American values. People in the United States are very diverse in skin tones.
Women in the United States vary in the color of shade that they need for their makeup
routine, so Korean face base products that are narrowed down to a specific group will
not benefit the market of the United States’ beauty culture, making it harder for Korean
beauty culture to fully immerse in the western beauty industry. Even though it is hard
for Koreans to completely dominate the cosmetic industry, they still managed to get
their products in the market of the United States, by either being an expensive product
in Sephora, or being accessible through US-based companies such as Memebox;
Koreans are still leading in the cosmetic industry.
The increasing global popularity of the Korean cosmetic industry has brought up
opportunities in investment with market growth rates that increase yearly. More and
more investment companies putting their money on Korean cosmetics, even other
international beauty companies started to adapt Korean cosmetic innovations to
increase global competition in the cosmetic industry. People worldwide who are
beginning to use Korean cosmetics are increasing yearly, as western beauty companies
try to create their own version of products with Korean cosmetic innovations in mind
into their makeup or skincare line. On top of that, with the help of YouTube and
marketing strategies, Korean cosmetic companies sponsor certain beauty vloggers to
test and review their product for their viewers, therefore increasing the number of
potential buyers of Korean cosmetics around the world. And every day, a lot more

45
people are becoming aware of this lead in the cosmetic industry, especially to those
who are working as makeup artists, or have their own cosmetic line. It does not mean
that the US is becoming more “Korean”, but the fact that Koreans are continually
influencing the western market is proof enough to say that Korean cosmetics is leading
the worldwide beauty industry (Hilario, 2016).

2.2.4.2.2. Men and cosmetics in South Korea

South Korean men have long embraced beauty products deemed unmarketable to
their Western counterparts. Over the past decade, they have become the world's
biggest male spenders on skincare, a market that grew by 44% in the country
between 2011 and 2017 (Euromonitor, 2019). Additionally, about three quarters of
South Korean men undertake a beauty or grooming treatment (from salon hair
treatments to at-home facials) at least once a week. This figure is even higher for
Generation Z respondents, with 58% of those born after 2000 saying they pamper
themselves with "lengthy" beauty or grooming treatments at least once per week,
compared to 34% of South Korean men overall. In an interview with CNN, Roald
Maliangkay, director of the Korea Institute at The Australian National University
described a recent visit to Seoul's old city center district, Myeongdong: I am struck
by how many local young men are now emulating the look typical of Korean male
idols. I saw many men in sharply cut outfits with perfectly groomed dyed hair and
double eyelids (as a result of cosmetic surgery), and I even noticed a few men
wearing some light makeup (Rapp, 2019).
James Turnbull, a writer and lecturer based in the city of Busan, South Korea, who
specializes in Korean feminism and popular culture, hypnotizes a work-related
reason behind this increasing trend. Korea’s prolonged economic slump, especially
its jobless-driven recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, is driving male beauty trends
today. Specifically, Korea now has the highest youth unemployment rate since the
catastrophic Asian Financial Crisis of the late-1990s, and has always had too many
graduates (Korea has one of the highest numbers of university entrance rates in the
world) chasing after ever-diminishing numbers of jobs at conglomerates like Samsung
and LG. In this cut-throat environment, 20 and 30-somethings are all about improving
their CVs with extra degrees, courses, internships, English-language qualifications,

46
and so on, and the beauty industry has been quick to address the need to get a step up
on the competition through improving one’s looks too. Lest this sound like
exaggeration, bear in mind that Korea and Japan are the only countries in the
OECD where it is routine to require photographs on resumes, and accordingly the
Korean internet is full of forums where people can upload their pictures and receive
constructive criticism on their appearance and photoshopping suggestions before they
submit their job applications.
About the role K-Pop plays into the male beauty culture, he states that, given all the
overseas media attention focused on the Korean Wave, and especially recently on the
phenomenal success of the boy-band BTS, it is very easy to overlook the fact that K-
pop isn’t actually all that popular in Korea itself. Also, there are huge generational and
regional differences in male beauty culture, with generally only young Seoulite (those
living in Seoul) embracing the new beauty trends that get all the media attention. Much
more influential then, are the aforementioned job-hunting pressures, as well as men’s
almost universally-shared experience of military conscription. Facing two years in the
harsh wind and sun along the DMZ, these days conscripts quickly learn to become
avid users of sunscreen especially. A gateway drug to more involved and varied skin
routines once they leave the military.
That said, is undeniable that all Koreans in their 20s have grown-up under the K-pop
influence. It is also true that Korea has a uniquely celebrity-obsessed media culture, to
an extent that is difficult to appreciate without living in the country. Over 60% of
television commercials feature celebrities for instance, and they appear on TV shows
far more often than their Western counterparts. Moreover, most of the men you see
when you flick the channels are indeed young K-pop stars, as their entertainment
agencies have strong incentives to accept offers of endorsement deals for them, which
are far more lucrative than music sales. Naturally, many of these deals are for selling
male beauty products. But they are no less influential if they are in ads aimed at women
instead (they have increasingly appeared even in lingerie ads for instance), as if
Korean women increasingly come to demand the beauty standards and routines of
male idols in their romantic partners, then ordinary Korean men will only be too eager
to attempt to provide. Given K-pop stars’ pervasive, ubiquitous presence in Korean
daily life then, it is very difficult to imagine the beauty ideals they represent, and

47
advocate don’t have some influence on the Korean public, regardless of their personal
music tastes.
Talking about the products that constitute male “beauty” in Korea, there’s an
opposition to the traditional way that women wear a full face of makeup, as the
emphasis is overwhelmingly on skincare, based on their previously-mentioned,
formative experiences in the military (Turnbull, 2019).
In September 2018, Chanel released Boy de Chanel, its first cosmetics range for
men. The line features eight shades of tinted foundation, a two-in-one brow pencil
and brush, and a transparent matte lip balm. Aiming to "write the vocabulary of a
new personal aesthetic for men," the French house piloted the collection in South
Korea before making it available online to US shoppers on November 2018 (Rapp,
2019).

Left to right: South Korean actor Lee Dong-Wook, face of “Boy De Chanel”; model Matthew Bell.

3. Social media
The earlier forms of social media on the Internet were Internet chats. As soon as instant
messaging environments became technologically viable on their own, together with
the possibility to incorporate them within websites, Internet chats soon became places

48
where a variety of cultural and subcultural activities took place, especially involving
teenagers. Computer-mediated communication such as chats and instant messaging
evolved in a variety of environments wherein users can exchange a variety of
information in a number of information in a number of different ways. As users start
to be recognized as “prosumers” and the idea of a user being both a consumer and a
producer of information that is accessed online culturally settles in, the technological
design of digital environments rapidly moves towards the engineering of what we now
commonly refer to as “social network sites” (Caliandro, Gandini, 2017). boyd (styled
lowercase) and Nicole Ellison (2007) defined social network sites as: “[…] web-based
services that allow individuals to 1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system, 2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection,
and 3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the
system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.”
In their own work, boyd and Ellison map out a historical progression that, they argue,
starts in 1997 with SixDegrees.com – a website that already featured the possibility to
create a profile and list friends and school affiliations on one single page – and gets all
the way through to 2006, when those social network sites we consider as common
today, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube, were already active.
In this thesis, three social network sites are going to be analyzed: Facebook, Instagram
and Youtube.

3.2. Facebook
Facebook is among the most popular social network sites worldwide. Founded in 2003
with the name “Facemash” by four Harvard students, and conceived as a website that
allowed users to rate “hot or not” fellow female Harvard attendees. It evolved into
Facebook in 2004 and quickly experiences significant growth, leading to its IPO in
2012 – which resulted in the largest valuation to date for a newly public company. As
of 31 March 2019, 1.56 billion daily active users on Facebook on average for March
2019 and 2.38 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2019. Users on Facebook
become “friends” with each other and a relationship on the site has to be reciprocated
to actually exist. Each Facebook member has a non-anonymous personal profile,
known as a “Diary”, whereby one can upload a profile picture and a header picture,

49
and where the posts one publishes or is tagged in (i.e. mentioned) appear in reverse
chronological order on a Timeline. Users of Facebook can like and manage Pages,
which are public profiles of people, organizations or entities of various sorts.
Information on personal profiles may be made available to a varying number of users,
depending on one’s privacy settings. A number of platform affordances shape this
availability: for individual profiles, various options are available, including Only
Friends, Friends of Friends and Public; Pages updates are by default public (Caliandro,
Gandini, 2017).
The main place where interaction takes place alongside the Diary is the News feed,
where all posts of the user’s friends and Pages liked appear to the same user. A
Facebook post – technically defined as “status update” – is not limited in the number
of characters and can take the form of written text, pictures, links, a video or a
combination of these items (Caliandro, Gandini, 2017). Another interaction feature is
the "like" button, stylized as a "thumbs up" icon. It was first enabled on February 9,
2009, and enables users to easily interact with status updates, comments, photos and
videos, links shared by friends, and advertisements. Once clicked by a user, the
designated content is more likely to appear in friends' News Feeds. The button displays
the number of other users who have liked the content. The like button was extended to
comments in June 2010. Facebook expanded Like into "Reactions", choosing among
five pre-defined emotions, including "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", or "Angry".
On May 13, 2015, Facebook in association with major news portals launched "Instant
Articles" to provide news on the Facebook news feed without leaving the site. In
January 2017, Facebook launched Facebook Stories for iOS and Android. The feature,
following the format of Snapchat and Instagram stories, allows users to upload photos
and videos that appear above friends' and followers' News Feeds and disappear after
24 hours. In 2017, Facebook added "Messenger Day", a feature that lets users share
photos and videos in a story-format with all their friends with the content disappearing
after 24 hours; Reactions, which lets users tap and hold a message to add a reaction
through an emoji; and Mentions, which lets users in group conversations type @ to
give a particular user a notification.
Users use Facebook for a variety of purposes that include keeping in touch with distant
friends, identity construction, self-presentation. However, Facebook is widely used for

50
business purposes by brands, organizations and entities of various sorts. It may be
argued that the marketing of a product or brand today cannot but take place via
Facebook, where Pages offer various tools to marketers for the management of public
and customer interaction, as well as for promotional purposes broadly intended
(Caliandro, Gandini, 2017).
Businesses and users can interact through Messenger with features such as tracking
purchases and receiving notifications and interacting with customer service
representatives. Third-party developers can integrate apps into Messenger, letting
users enter an app while inside Messenger and optionally share details from the app
into a chat. Developers can build chatbots into Messenger, for uses such as news
publishers building bots to distribute news. The M virtual assistant (U.S.) scans chats
for keywords and suggests relevant actions, such as its payments system for users
mentioning money.

3.3. Instagram
Instagram is nowadays the most important photo-sharing application. Released in
2010 as a mobile photo-sharing and social networking application, Instagram has
quickly taken the lead mainly as a result of the possibility to easily share and discuss
photos, as well as thanks to a vintage filter feature that proved to be extremely popular.
As of March 2019, Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users and more than 500
million of them use the platform every day.
Instagram users post a piece of content – a picture or a short video of maximum 60
seconds – to which other users can reply (however, only in a textual format). Also,
each picture is generally accompanied by one or more hashtags that make it searchable
to other users, and users can mention other users in a comment. These hashtags are
usually used to describe the context in which the photos. For the same purpose, users
can use a localization that, as with hashtags, makes it searchable to other users when
looking for pictures taken all in the same location. Although there is no native
Instagram feature that allows users to repost pictures, users can do it by using third-
party applications that complement the original app.
A new important feature on Instagram are the “Stories”, launched back in August 2016.
It’s a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to

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their Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours. In
November, Instagram added live video functionality to Instagram Stories, allowing
users to broadcast themselves live, with the video disappearing immediately after
ending. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo
and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories. Later on, Instagram
announced "Story Search", in which users can search for geographic locations or
hashtags and the app displays relevant public Stories content featuring the search
term. In June 2017, Instagram revised its live-video functionality to allow users to add
their live broadcast to their story for availability in the next 24 hours or discard the
broadcast immediately. In July, Instagram started allowing users to respond to Stories
content by sending photos and videos, complete with Instagram effects such as filters,
stickers, and hashtags. Stories were made available for viewing on Instagram's mobile
and desktop websites in late August 2017.
For what concerns the use of Instagram for businesses, a few of the features mentioned
above are particularly recommended. For example, 500 million people use stories
every day (they both “make” them or just watch them) and most brands (2 million of
them), as a consequence, are telling their stories with Stories. In general, a good
portion of users interacts with businesses: for 16. 25 million business profiles there are
over 200 million users visiting at least one business profile every day (with 80% of
users following at least one business account).
Another characteristic of this platform which makes it business-friendly is being
mostly used on mobile devices. Since some features are only available on the mobile
app (such as Stories and mentioning other uses), users naturally tend to use it more
than the desktop version. This brings an advantage in terms of clicks, engagement and
purchases: 60% of users seek out and discover new products on Instagram platform
and 75% actually “go forth”; visiting a website after looking at a brand’s post. For this
reason, posting good pictures is essential. Thanks to this simple “eye-catching format”,
is easier for users to interact with businesses, making Instagram the social network
with major interaction rate – 2.2 percent, even more than Facebook, which has only
0.22 percent rate. Finally, 70% of users are more likely to buy via mobile by simply
clicking on the link in the “Biography” section of the business’ profile (Clarke, 2019).

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3.4. YouTube
Based on uploads, YouTube is arguably the most important video-sharing platform
and social network site, the foundation of which was a game changer in the social
media industry, back in 2005. Each month, more than 1.9 billion users access YouTube
and every day visitors watch over a billion hours of video, generating billions of views3.
Users on YouTube subscribe to the platform by creating a profile – in this case, a
channel – through which their videos can be viewed. Users can also subscribe to other
users’ channels, receive updates about new postings and create playlists that include
other users’ videos. The main element of social interaction that the platform enables is
the ability comment on the videos. Comments can be posted below each video and
represent a lively form of interaction wherein various forms of social exchange take
place. Users can also like or dislike a video, the latter being a feature can be rarely
found on other social media platforms. Since 2011, YouTube also offers live
performances as well as content produced for the platform by traditional broadcasters,
which use YouTube channel to reach various (especially younger) audiences. The
business uses of YouTube are widespread, mainly in relation to marketing, advertising
and political campaigning, in order to reach various kinds of online audiences. As
noted by Burgess and Green (2013), while the website is centered on user-generated
content, and users are the main actors contributing to the website, studies of the
categories of popularity on the platform indicate that some are dominated by corporate
content and well-established media or industry players.
One of the most YouTuber-born online phenomenon are Youtubers. The name
YouTubers refers to video bloggers (vloggers) who regularly post videos on their
personal YouTube channels (Burgess and Green, 2009). Quite a few vloggers have
accumulated millions of views and equally high numbers of subscribers. Right now,
the most watched vlogs are uploaded by young men who film themselves playing
videogames while they simultaneously comment on the play, the most famous being
Swedish, UK-based player Felix Kjellberg, aka “PewDiePie,” who has almost 42
million subscribers and more than 11 billion views of his “Let’s Play” videos (Jerslev,
2016). Another much-watched category is the comedy and satire vlog, and a third is
the beauty and style vlog in which lifestyle vloggers offer advice and share their

3
Retrived on https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/ in June, 2019.

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everyday lives—in the tradition of the webcam culture from the beginning of the new
millennium (Senft, 2008).

4. Customer service
The period following the visit to the virtual store is also a crucial moment for the
delivery of services that create value for the client. This includes and completes the
consumption process, during which there might be a need for informational assistance
(e.g. for the optimal use of the product), technical assistance (e.g. repairs of durable
goods) and financial assistance (to complete payment of the product). In this phase
new shopping motivations can also arise, which should be addressed and satisfied in
the virtual store, or otherwise adequately dealt with.
The utility that is generally expected or appreciated by the shopper in this phase is
basically represented by the care, in the sense of attention, proximity and assistance
(responsiveness), of the company with respect to the client’s needs. Customer care
services can be generated and transferred to the clientele as utility through adequate
post-sale informational, technical and financial assistance. Moreover, it is mostly
during this phase that the company can try to curb the free-riding phenomenon
(opportunistic behaviour of a client who goes to a store with the purpose of gathering
information on the product the client wants to buy and finalizes the purchase at a non-
specialized store that has lower prices) and, at the same time, encourage customer
loyalty (Castaldo, Grosso and Premazzi, 2013).

4.1 From Customer Service to Social Customer Service

Companies that believe in and try to provide the best customer service are companies
that will have many benefits. A bad experience will travel a lot faster than a good one,
especially in the digital world we live in today. When product differentiation is
becoming rather impossible, companies attempt to gain competitive advantage through
service (Peel, 1990).
Some of the definitions of customer service can be limited, some describing it as
customer care, but “true customer service is far more comprehensive, and must involve
virtually every aspect of the organization’s activities” (Peel, 1990). Furthermore, the
focus of any true customer service is to minimize issues and enhance the customer

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experience an individual customer is having (Greenberg, 2009). A comprehensive
definition of customer service is “the customer care activities that surround the
purchase of a product or service” (Greenberg, 2009b). Peel (1990) mentions how
customer service is present in every one of the different stages of a transaction, these
being: market research, the pre-order climate, the buying/ordering process, the period
from order to delivery, packaging and presentation, transport, accuracy, completeness
and convenience of delivery, complaints handling, payment, after-sales service and
support. Taking in consideration that customers have more choices today and targeted
customers are more valuable for companies, customer service must be placed in the
top when considering strategy (Winer, 2001). Turban (2002) states that customer
service can be characterized as the activities intended to upgrade the level of customer
satisfaction before, during, or after a purchase. Walsh and Godfrey (2000) argue that
effective customer service prompts enhanced customer satisfaction, which creates a
positive pull factor. They argue further that this positive pull factor component could
be portrayed as creating a feeling of familiarity and commitment, which gives the
customer little motivation to shop somewhere else.
Traditionally, customer service has been essentially achieved through communication
channels like phone or email, however nowadays these channels have proven to be
somewhat ineffective. In 2008, Forrester Research conducted a survey where they
asked customers for the reason of not using call centers to solve their issues. As
indicated by Greenberg (2009b), it was discovered that poor knowledge management
capabilities, routing inaccuracies, and substandard customer data access were all
primary reasons why customers felt this way. Geierhos (2011) explains this further by
mentioning that these communication channels are time consuming and error prone,
and by continuing with traditional customer service can lead to the loss of customers.
Additionally, call centers rely on metrics, which are crafted to measure the efficiency
of the customer service agents, but not to measure how successful the interaction with
the customer was. Greenberg (2009b) debates that these approaches do not undertake
a customer-centric approach, but rather a corporate one that focuses on the satisfaction
of the management and not on the resolution of customer issues.
One customer-centric method that can enhance the customer service offered is the
sustained focus on customer experience. As stated by Greenberg (2009b), customer

55
experience is the core of customer service and recently academics have been debating
whether customer experience is an important factor of customer satisfaction and
loyalty (Caruana, 2002). Makan and Klaus (2011), define customer experience as “the
customer’s cognitive and affective assessment of all direct and indirect encounters
with the firm relating to their purchasing behavior”. As reported by Makan and Klaus
(2011), unlike customer satisfaction, customer experience measures a more holistic
consumer concept by taking into account the sum of all direct and indirect interactions
with a company, delivering better explanatory power and identification of main issue
areas for managerial consideration. On the other hand, Greenberg (2010) believes the
foundation of any successful customer service model is the need of actual human
interactions and the provision of a meaningful experience with customers who have
engaged with the company.
In recent years, more and more customer service channels where the customers can
engage in a two-way dialogue with the company have appeared. Currently, companies
develop virtual call centers that integrate companies’ fan pages into social networking
sites. These virtual call centers are then able to process the customer conversations and
direct the conversation to the appropriate channel, but also identify customer service
issues and act on them before they harm sales or the company’s reputation (Geierhos,
2011).
With the arrival of Web 2.0, the customer service experience has changed radically,
and many companies are aware of the fact that they should adopt social customer
service. Due to technological changes and social media, the existing customer-centric
view of companies needs to change and adapt in order to be where the customer is
most comfortable. Social customer service might be characterized essentially as social
media/business meets customer service. It has developed as a result of organizations
and brands uncovering the advantages from proactively overseeing customer service
and support through social media channels (McCabe et al., 2013).
A McKinsey research indicates that a single negative post on social media has, on
average, as much impact on customer choices as five positive posts. Social media has
made customers expect on receiving immediate feedback. Indeed, a considerable
measure of customer service nowadays is occurring through social media, and
customers anticipate that the company will respond as if it was one of their Twitter

56
followers. More than half of Twitter users expect a reaction in less than two hours, a
lot faster than most companies’ response time (Benmark, 2012).

4.2. Social Media, Social CRM and Customer Service

Social media and social networking are no longer in their infancy nowadays. Ever
since the emergence of the first social media networks around twenty years ago, social
media has continued to grow and provide customers around the world new and
meaningful ways to engage with people and companies that matter to them. Nowadays,
social media is still growing rapidly and has become an integral part of our daily lives.
Social networking is truly a global phenomenon (Bannon, 2012).
A survey on how companies are benefiting from Web 2.0 undertaken by McKinsey
(Bughin et al, 2009) shows that the most important means of exchanging knowledge
are blogs, RSS and social networks and technologies that strengthen the relationship
between companies and their customers are blogs and social networks. Blogs and
social networks allow companies to deliver product information, inviting customers to
participate with feedback and even be part of the product’s creation process.
Once technology has developed, the usual one-way communication between the
company and the customer changed to a two-way one. The customer is the one that is
now in the center of the communication process. This way, the customer engagement
is higher than ever and customers are able to be active participants in most strategic
decisions taken in a company (Greenberg, 2009b; Shimp, 2009, Fuchs et al., 2010).
Furthermore, consumers no longer feel the need to turn to the company for information,
but rather rely on advice and recommendations from their networks of friends and
family through common online groups and communities (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
In order for companies to manage the customer relationships in the best way possible,
it is advised that they implement social CRM. The term is still relatively new and Faase
et al. (2011) states it is a mixture of social media with traditional CRM procedures.
Moreover, CRM is seen as important for companies because it focuses on providing
what the customer needs and wants, this feature leading back to the customer-centric
model. Thus CRM is about building good relationships with the company’s customers
(Boulding et al., 2005; Frow & Payne, 2009).

57
For a company to prosper it is vital for it to know how to serve its customers and in
order to do that, the company has to listen to their needs and desires. In today’s
electronic world, customers prefer to engage and communicate with their favorite
brands through social media. Companies should be able to listen and respond to its
customers’ feedback, no matter if the customer is having an issue with the company
or if it is just to give an appraisal.
Studies have shown that when considering word-of-mouth, “an angry customer will
tell up to 20 other people about a bad experience. A satisfied customer shares good
experiences with 9 to 12 people.” (Safko, 2010). With the presence of social media
and applications like Twitter and Facebook, a lot more than twenty people can now
hear a bad experience a customer had with a brand. Social media usage has been
growing rapidly every year with the top social networking sites like Facebook and
Twitter. This shows how important social media platforms are for consumers and
companies should be able to meet customers wherever they feel more comfortable.

4.3. Social customer service

Social media is the incredible equalizer between organizations and customers yet using
social channels to their true ability could be bound with complex quality if social
media is not fused into a more extensive customer engagement procedure. More
organizations understand the significance of using social media as an instrument to
enhance the customer experience. Today, social media is constantly utilized as more
than a communication platform and is changing into a means to ensure product quality,
services, and deliverables (Liyakasa, 2013).
Customer service via social media, also known as social customer service, has become
essential for global brands. Customers choose when and where they voice their
questions, issues and complaints, blurring the line between marketing and customer
service. Brands should consider this evolution and ensure they are ready to react on all
channels. Brands ought to consider this development and guarantee they are prepared
to respond on all channels. Complaints and inquiries voiced on social media channels
are exceedingly noticeable to different clients, and in the event that a company neglects
to recognize them, its notoriety can rapidly disintegrate. There are some comments

58
that are vindictive and do not justify a reaction, yet even those are essential to a
business and need to be tended to.
For an expanding number of individuals, social media is the primary place they turn
when they encounter an issue. As per Nielson's social media report (2012), 47% of
social media users take part in social customer service and one in three customers want
to contact brands utilizing social media, instead of the phone. Less than half of
organizations are actively reacting to these enquiries and large portions of those are
utilizing cost-cutting copy and copy-paste strategies, which are precisely what call-
center were criticized for. There is a need to put resources into discovering methods
for supporting customers more effectively on the channel of their decision and
guarantee a steady customer service encounter over all channels (Brynley-Jones, 2013).

4.4. Online Retailing and the Internet Environment for Customers

By 2013, online retailing companies have ended up being diligent in the retailing
business and have expanded in number and size. Indeed, they hold a decent amount of
the aggregate retailing business; the Center for Retail Research (2013) reported a 12%
offer in aggregate retailing for the UK, 8.8% offer in aggregate retailing in Europe
(counting UK) and 9% for the US - considering the distinction in business measure,
the rates might be considered rather comparative. Additionally, further development
is expected, however somewhat slower when compared to past years due to the
economic crisis. However not only the numbers of the market share of the overall
industry in internet retailing changed, but a movement towards an online business
sector brought change to conventional business procedures too.
Entering the age of Web 2.0, various movements have occurred for businesses as well
as customers. It is thus important to comprehend that the internet has become like a
market environment to companies and organizations, and this section will concentrate
on the internet environment in the interest of the customer.
The most essential changes in the new internet environment are innovative
advancement as well as the epitome of a theoretical step towards the interactivity
(O’Reilly & Battelle, 2009). Co-creation, participation and openness (Lister et al.,
2009) are very important in the new interactive space of the internet. Web 2.0 moved

59
past the one-way communication of Web 1.0 and concentrated mostly on the
information provided by all instead of the exclusive direction of top management.
There are numerous components that can prompt customer participation and
engagement. As per the study performed by Chu and Kim (2011), customers have a
tendency to recommend and discuss products on social networking platforms. The
presence of both customer and companies on a social networking site can possibly
build a solid relationship between the two through a closer communication process. It
is therefore vital that companies perceive these causes and improve them with a
specific end goal to upgrade quality in communication. Given the community and
social qualities of the space of social networking sites, these platforms might be seen
as a rising venue of consumer-to-consumer conversations and word-of-mouth
branding for businesses.

4.5 Customer Relationship Management and Social Customer Relationship

Management
4.5.1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management is the process and technology that is able to
translate the customer information into customer knowledge (Fayerman, 2002). The
term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) appeared in the mid-1990s, and
today is normally used within the context of technology solutions used to manage the
customer relationship effectively (Payne & Frow, 2005). Throughout the years, these
technology-based solutions have been used either for sales force automation,
marketing or customer service. From the viewpoint of the customers, the requirement
for expanded interaction with companies is incredible, as they are extremely impacted
by the different communication opportunities. These interactions bring loyalty and
serve as testimony of service efficiency and customer orientation from the company’s
side (Teo et al. 2006).
Due to a great range of technology-based solutions, the definition of Customer
Relationship Management has varied significantly over the years, which at times has
been a source of difficulties for those attempting to implement it correctly. According
to Payne and Frow (2005), in interviews with managers, the Customer Relationship
Management view varied from direct mail, a loyalty card scheme, a help desk or even

60
a call center. Khanna (2001) views CRM as an e-commerce application, while Singh
and Agrawal (2003) believe it is companywide initiative that belongs in all areas of an
organization. Buttle (2009) mentions that CRM is about the development and
maintenance of long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with strategically
significant customers.
Modoran (2014) believes that a wholesome definition is proposed by Payne and Frow
(2005): “CRM is a strategic approach that is concerned with creating improved
shareholder value through the development of appropriate relationships with key
customers and customer segments. CRM unites the potential of relationship marketing
strategies and IT to create profitable, long-term relationships with customers and other
key stakeholders. CRM provides enhanced opportunities to use data and information
to both understand costumers and other key stakeholders. CRM provides enhanced
opportunities to use data and information to both understand customers and co-create
with them. This requires a cross functional integration of processes, people, operations,
and marketing capabilities that is enabled through information, technology and
applications.”
While examining the different definitions of CRM, this can be defined from three
viewpoints: “narrowly and tactically as a particular technology solution, wide-ranging
technology, and customer centric” (Payne & Frow, 2005).

Figure 2. The CRM Continuum (Source: Payne & Frow, 2005, p. 168)

CRM can be divided into four distinctive branches: strategic, operational, analytical
and collaborative CRM. These will be explained in more detail in the lines below.

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Strategic CRM refers to the fact that CRM is meant to be seen as a companywide
strategy in which the primary focus is on the customer. It is additionally expected that,
inside a company, it is a core managerial responsibility to support and execute this
focus as a CRM strategy, including placing an emphasis on the efficient analysis and
utilization of customer data as a platform for marketing and management (Wahlberg
et al., 2009).
Operational CRM manages the design, planning and execution of operational CRM
activities and offers systems that help everyday business in in areas like marketing,
sales and customer service by automating the procedures connected with customer
relations. It is inside this CRM type one can observe the areas that are adjusted to
specifically manage customer service, as its main task is to help customer on the basis
of information from the central CRM database or back-office solutions (Xu & Walton,
2005). One main field of application of operational CRM is service automation. In this
particular field the service department of a company is supported and several
components can be used to interact with customers like helpdesks, complaint
management and service requests.
Analytical CRM can be seen as analytical tools used to analyze the customer
knowledge database created from the collection and storage of customer data, intended
to “generate customer profiles, identify behavior patterns, determine satisfaction level
and support customer segmentation” (Xu & Walton, 2005). Through the data analysis
a more efficient marketing process can be achieved. Nowadays the collecting and
analysis of customer data is much more systematic and efficient (Wahlberg et al.,
2009). Moreover, in order for CRM to be effective, a good relationship between a
company and its customers is vital (Nguyen & Mutum, 2012).
Collaborative CRM covers the use of different communication channels in a channel
management strategy. The development of technology has broadened the
communication possibilities with the customers (Wahlberg et al., 2009). Apart from
that, CRM could also be extended to incorporate employees, suppliers, or partners.
Collaborative CRM can offer information and instruments to everyone and helps drive
deals through every channel from call centers to the web (Xu & Walton, 2005).

4.5.2 Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM)

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The term Social CRM (Modoran, 2014) can be found under different names in the
literature, such as e-CRM (Pan & Lee, 2003; Chaffey, 2011) or CRM 2.0 (Greenberg,
2009; Anshari & Almunawar, 2012).
Chaffey (2011) believes that it is rather difficult to state where CRM ends and Social
CRM begins, as nowadays they both make use of digital technology and media. He
believes that CRM and Social CRM cannot be separated and both of them “are not just
about technology and databases, it’s not just a process or a way of doing things, it
requires, in fact, a complete customer culture” (Chaffey, 2011).
With the arrival of social media and Web 2.0, there has been a proceeded increase in
interest on the effect that it can have on companies and businesses now and in the
future. Mohan et al. (2008) were one of the first to connect Web 2.0 and CRM, and
the resulting term they created was Social CRM. They presume that a Social CRM
framework consolidates the features of Web 2.0 and social networking with current
CRM frameworks (Mohan et al., 2008). Social CRM can be seen as a company specific
strategy that for creating customer involvement and building stronger customer
relationships uses Web 2.0 services to support dynamic customer engagement (Faase
et al. 2011).
Moreover, two other challenges and activities that require Social CRM would be
online customer service facilities and online service quality to ensure that customers
have a great experience that encourages them to purchase again (Chaffey, 2011).
One essential feature for creating customer involvement in Social CRM is the area of
engagement. Engagement means offering new points of contact through which
customer involvement is empowered by the organization (Faase et al., 2011). This can
include publishing content to Web 2.0 services (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) that customers
find interesting, also listening to the customer, and responding appropriately (Faase et
al., 2011). Today, many companies started acquiring the benefits and advantages of
engaging customers in an effective dialog. For instance, Starbucks Coffee has been an
early adaptor, with the making of their site mystarbucksidea.com, where customers are
encouraged to engage and communicate with the organization by giving thoughts that
would enhance their customer experience when going to the store (Kamath, 2008).
An alternate area in which Social CRM has progressed over traditional CRM is an
increase in consumer insights. Traditional CRM, as mentioned in the previous

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subchapter, was focused around a one-way conversation with the customer,
fundamentally concerned with customer information and records, and rather little with
consumer insights (Greenberg, 2010). As indicated by Shimp (2009), Social CRM
changed this by building a two-way relationship, which gives customers ownership for
discussion with the company. Besides, Social CRM is able to give diverse strategies
and tools to gather and investigate significant data from the customer, and how
companies can apply the data. As indicated by Greenberg (2009b), this data can
incorporate the nature of conversations about the organization by individual customers;
customers connected with specific accounts, but also conversations by the general
public about the company (Greenberg, 2009b). There are five essential parts that need
to be taken into consideration in order to gather the sort of data important enough to
enhance the learning capacities of companies about their customers. These will be
explained below:
• Data - Social CRM needs to gather transactional information, for example,
purchase histories, time used on different web pages are still important,
however it is not by any means the only information required any longer.
Information gathered from individual profiles, information assembled from
content analysis from conversations and blogs, and social networks is
required for compelling, correct customer insights (Greenberg, 2010).
• Sentiment analysis - Assessing the sentiment of individuals and groups
could be utilized to take a look at positive, negative and neutral consumer
feelings over a period of time, and how they spread through social networks
(Greenberg, 2009b; Pak & Paroubek, 2010).
• Social media monitoring - Social media monitoring can be used as a rich
source of information, in order to track conversation topics, influencers,
and customer service on a 24- hour basis (Greenberg, 2009; Kietzmann et
al., 2011).
• Customer profiling - This incorporates the individual data that is important
for revealing the customer experiences concerning how they wish to
interact with a company (Greenberg, 2009b; Chaffey, 2011).
• Customer experience maps - Customer experience mapping is a
representation of the service journey of a customer. It shows their

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 perspective from the beginning to the end, showing the range of tangible
and quantitative interactions, triggers and touchpoints, as well as the
intangible and qualitative motivations, disturbances and meanings
(Greenberg, 2009).
Some of the benefits of integrating Social CRM are: targeting more cost-effectively,
achieving mass customization of the marketing message (and the product or service),
increasing the depth and nature of relationships, a learning relationship can be
achieved using different tools through the customer lifecycle and lowering costs
(Chaffey, 2011).

4.6 Customer Service, Service Quality, Satisfaction and Loyalty

4.6.1 Service Quality
One cannot discuss about customer service and exclude service quality, as the two are
interconnected. Service quality “is the result of the comparison that customers make
between their expectations about a service and their perceptions of the way the service
has been performed” (Caruana, 2000). From the perspective of business administration,
service quality is an achievement in customer service and it appears at each service
encounter. Customers form service expectations from past experiences, word of mouth
and advertisement. In general, customers compare perceived service with expected
service in which if the former falls short of the latter the customers are disappointed
(Walker et al., 2006; Kassim & Abdullah, 2010).
Parasuraman et al. (1988) developed the service quality model or the gap model in
1985 and this highlights the main requirements for delivering high service quality. The
model identifies five gaps that cause unsuccessful delivery of service quality. In 1988,
Parasuraman et al. extended their research and stated that customers generally have a
tendency to compare the service they experience with the service they expect. If the
experience does not match the expectation, then a gap will appear. Parasuraman et al.
(1988) described ten determinants that may influence the appearance of a gap in the
SERVQUAL scale: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy,
communication, credibility, security, understanding the customer and tangibles. Later,
the determinants were reduced to five: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, service
assurance and empathy (Figure 3).

65
Figure 3. Customer perceptions of quality, satisfaction and loyalty (Source: Wilson et al.,
2012, p. 79)

The reliability dimension indicates how the company is performing and completing
their promised service, quality and accuracy within the given set requirements between
the company and the customer. Reliability gives the customers the opportunity to trust
the brand, as every customer wishes to know if the product or service provider is
reliable and able to fulfill the set requirements in a satisfactory manner (Parasuraman
et al. 1988; Wilson et al., 2012).
Responsiveness is the dimension that refers to the willingness of the company to help
its customers in providing them with a superior and fast service. This is again a very
significant dimension, due to the fact that every customer feels more valued if they get
the best possible quality in the service (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Wilson et al., 2012).
The assurance dimension refers to the company's employees. It is essential that the
employees are skilled workers that are able to gain the trust and confidence of the
customers. If the customers do not feel comfortable with the employees, there is a
rather large chance that the customers will not continue to do further business with the
company (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Wilson et al., 2012).
The empathy dimension specifies whether the company cares and provides
personalized attention to their customers, in order to make them feeling valued and

66
unique. The fourth dimension is actually combining the first, second and third
dimension to a higher level, even though they really cannot be compared as individuals.
If the customers feel they receive personal and quality attention there might be a
possibility that they will stay loyal to the brand (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Wilson et
al., 2012).
Lastly, tangibles refer to the appearance of the physical surroundings and facilities,
equipment, personnel and the way of communication. In other words, the tangible
dimension is about creating first hand impressions. A company should want all their
customers to get a unique positive and never forgetting first hand impression, this
would make them more likely to return in the future (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Wilson
et al., 2012). In the case of an online retailer, tangibles are restricted to the look and
feel of the website and the way of communicating with the employees or customer
service agents. In the case of social customer service this could be the customer’s first
impression with the customer service process (Modoran, 2014).

4.6.2 Customer Satisfaction

Ever since the early 1970s there has been remarkable research in the field of customer
satisfaction. Several theoretical structures were developed to examine satisfaction and
reach a measure that would be able to measure the construct. Customer satisfaction is
a rather major outcome of the marketing activity and is meant to link the purchase,
consumption and post purchase processes and the customers’ attitude, repeat purchase
and loyalty towards the brand (Churchill & Surprenant, 1982).
A general definition of customer satisfaction is provided by Kotler and Keller (2011,
p.128), who state “satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment
resulting from comparing product’s perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to
his or her expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is
dissatisfied, if the performance matches the expectations, the customer is satisfied, if
the performance exceeds expectations, and the customer is highly satisfied or
delighted”. The name of theory mentioned by Kotler and Keller is the expectancy
disconfirmation theory and it is one of the most common found in literature (McQuitty,
Finn and Wiley, 2000). Satisfaction (positive disconfirmation) and dissatisfaction
(negative disconfirmation) can be seen as two ends of a scale, where the placement of

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the customer’s feeling is found by comparing his expectations to the final outcome.
The customer will be satisfied if the outcome meets his expectations. As seen in Figure
2, service quality is one of the influencers of customer satisfaction. In the case of
service quality exceeding expectations, the service provider manages to make a
customer happy. On the other hand, dissatisfaction will occur when the perceived
overall service quality does not meet the customer’s expectations (Looy et al., 2003;
Wilson et al., 2012).
Two dimensions of customer satisfaction were discovered: transaction-specific and
cumulative or overall satisfaction (Boulding, et al., 1993). Transaction-specific means
that customer satisfaction is views as a post-choice evaluation judgment of one specific
purchase occasion (Oliver, 1980, 1993). Until recently, researchers focused and
developed literature on this type of dimension, but cumulative customer satisfaction is
the dimension which is more valuable as it measures the overall evaluation of the total
purchase occasions and consumption experiences over time (Johnson & Fornell, 1991;
Fornell et al. 1996).
Many studies have investigated the relationship with customer behavior patterns
(Dimitriades, 2006; Olorunniwo et al., 2006; Chi & Qu, 2008; Faullant & Matzler,
2008). According to these findings, customer satisfaction increases customer loyalty,
influences repurchase intentions and leads to positive word-of-mouth. As seen in
Figure 2, Wilson et al. (2012) shows that customer satisfaction is influenced by service
quality, product quality and price, but also situational factors and personal factors.

4.6.3 Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is the main result of customer satisfaction (Figure 2) and this concept
has various definitions and measurements that vary over the decades. Oliver (1997,
p.392) defines customer loyalty as “a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-
patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, despite situation
influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behaviors”.
After reviewing literature on customer loyalty, it was found that this concept, like the
concept of customer satisfaction, has a few dimensions. Two of the most important
dimensions are the behavioral and attitudinal components (Yin, 1991). Behavioral
loyalty refers to the customer’s behavior of repeating the purchase or the possibility of

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repeating the purchase from the same company. On the other hand, attitudinal loyalty
is meant as a future intention to repurchase, this reflecting a cognitive and emotional
attachment associated with customer loyalty (Dick & Basu, 1994).
Customer loyalty is one of the most important metrics in marketing, as a loyal
customer base will lead to a high level of profits for the company. Moreover, customer
loyalty also indicates customer retention, as loyalty measures the customer’s intention
to repurchase a product or service. For internet based companies that do not own a
physical shop, the relationship with their customers is vital and the companies should
make the effort of maintaining and growing the relationship (Modoran, 2014).

5 Survey
5.1 What is a survey?
A survey is a social scientific research instrument in which respondents are asked
questions about their own or other individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, beliefs,
perceptions, and/or values. While many of these categories overlap, major differences
exist depending on how a researcher approaches a study. Surveys are useful for data
collection, especially in the following situations: when new data is needed and when
people are best at providing the data about what the researcher studying. For these two
reasons, being able to access the population is essential. If the researcher is interested
in studying public opinion about a presidential decision, a survey may be appropriate.
One could measure individuals’ personal opinions on the decision and about the
President. Public opinion polls are a standard survey form. Another standard survey
form is a communication or psychological self-report: using this survey, a researcher
can measure an individual’s level of communication apprehension. When the
respondent fills out the survey, they are reporting their personal perception of how
much communication apprehension they have. Self-report surveys give the subjects a
chance to answer questions about themselves, which can provide in-depth information
about phenomena (Croucher & Cronn-Mills, 2014). However, some researchers
criticize self-reports; for example, Nicotera (1996) stated individuals are likely to
under-estimate their true level of argumentativeness, and instead score themselves
lower to be more socially desirable. Croucher, Kassing, and Diers- Lawson (2013)
found a minor statistical difference between our self-reporting and how others report

69
our level of dissent in organizations (less than people had thought). Thus, aside from
a handful of studies suggesting people tend to over- and/or under-estimate their own
behaviors, self-reports appear to be a reliable and valid form of measurement. To solve
for an over/under-estimation, researchers encourage the use of other-report surveys,
where the researcher asks individuals to report on the communicative behavior of
another person. (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986; Spitzberg & Hecht, 1984).

5.2 Survey structure and types

Initially, the survey will begin with general research issues that need to be investigated.
These are gradually narrowed down so that they become research questions, which
may take the form of hypo-theses, but this need not necessarily be the case. The
movement from research issues to research questions is likely to be the result of
reading the literature relating to the issues, such as relevant theories and evidence.
Once the research questions have been formulated, the planning of the fieldwork can
begin. In practice, decisions relating to sampling and the research instrument will
overlap, but they are technically part of a sequence.
The survey researcher needs to decide what kind of population is suited to the
investigation of the topic and also needs to formulate a research instrument and how it
should be administered. By ‘research instrument’ is meant simply something like a
structured interview schedule or a self-completion questionnaire. Moreover, there are
several different ways of administering such instruments. The main types of surveys
that can be encountered are structured interviews and self-completion questionnaires.
Structure interviews can be conducted face to face (paper and pencil or computer-
assisted personal interviewing) or by telephone (paper and pencil or computer-assisted
telephone interviewing). Self-completion questionnaires can be supervised, postal or
Internet questionnaires. Finally, Internet questionnaires can be administered via email
(embedded or attached) or through a web page (Bryman, 2012).

5.3 Administered survey

The main research issue of my master thesis is to analyze the Korea cosmetics industry
from the perspective of its export potential to the Italian market and possible marketing

70
strategies supporting such exports across difference price segments of Korean
cosmetic products.

5.4 Data and methodology

5.4.1 Data collection and sampling
Primary data has been collected by means of a survey. A survey is the best resource
for collecting responses from a large sample in an efficient way (Saunders, Lewis &
Thornhill, 2003). Because of the ability to reach a higher portion of the population and
its low cost, an Internet questionnaire was used as a mean of testing the population
instead of a paper survey. The online questionnaire was designed on Google Forms
(https://www.google.com/forms), and was distributed among the researcher’s network
of coworkers, university colleagues and friends via social media pages such as
Instagram and Facebook. The questionnaire can be seen in Appendix.
A non-probability sampling method was selected. Starting from the researcher’s
network, a snowball sampling (also called network sampling) method, in which an
initial group of respondents is asked to pass the survey on to their network peers
(Goodman, 1961). Furthermore, the survey was shared on the researcher’s university
course and curriculum (Corporate Communication a.a. 2017/2018; Comunicazione
Pubblica e d'Impresa 2018/2019 – Unimi; Corporate Communication COM a.a.
2016/2017) and South Korea culture-related groups (Café coreano) and pages (Nolja

놀자) on Facebook and through direct messages to coevals of both sexes on Instagram.

Also, as soon as the name of one Italy-based K-beauty retailer in particular (My Beauty
Routine) started showing up among the answers to the administered survey, the
founder and CEO of the online shop was asked by the researcher to share the survey
on the business’s Facebook page.
The goal was to attract diverse respondents in order to different perspectives. The first
five pages and groups share an audience of an age range between 20 and 30 years-old.
As more answers were received after the survey had been shared the last listed page,
however, it has been noticed that the age range of those who answered the questions
rose to 40 to 60 years-old.
The interest in interviewing Italian citizens in general was driven by the interest in
discovering how much known K-beauty is in Italy and how this knowledge is spread.

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Secondly, the interest in interviewing people that are actively interested in cosmetics
is to give an appropriate measure of the effective visibility and successful promotion
of K-beauty products both in Italian shops and on online shops shipping from Italy or
simply delivering to Italy. Finally, the interest in spreading the survey among people
actively interested in Korean cosmetics was driven by this researcher’s theory: people
who are interested in Korean cosmetics get usually interested in other Korean cultural
products, such as music, television programs and language.
There was not a preference towards a genderized target, as Korean culture and K-
beauty are becoming increasingly popular among male consumers.

5.4.2 Pre-test of the questionnaire

Before actual data collection, testing of the questionnaire was conducted with 2
volunteers. The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire and note any
question they didn’t fully understand and any other comment they had. The survey
was also tested for average response time, to assure the survey completion doesn’t take
more than 10 minutes. The researcher’s goal was to create a survey that would cover
all the topics of the research without decreasing the completion rate of the survey.
Some changes to the survey were made according to the testers’ suggestions. Some
questions were re-phrased or their grammatical structure and wording changed
according to testers’ suggestions to achieve a user-friendlier questionnaire.

5.4.3 Data analysis

The data was collected in the time frame of three weeks, starting from February 20th,
2019 and ending on March 13th, 2019. Data was collected only electronically. The
survey was completed by 213 people.

5.4.4 Sample characteristics

The average results of the sample characteristics are summarized in Table 5. The
average age of the respondents in the study is between 13 and 59 years old, while the
average age for the Italian population is above 45 years (Istituto di Statistica, 2018).
This shows that, even though only a few participants who took part to the survey are
more than 45 years-old, the access to Internet is spreading across generations.

72
The total age distribution results of the questionnaire are presented in the Appendix.

Table 1. Sample characteristics overview

CHARACTERISTIC SAMPLE RESULT (n=213)
Gender 5,6% Male, 93,9% Female, 0,5% Genderfluid.
1960-1968: 1,8%; 1973-1979: 9,3%; 1980-
Year of birth 1989: 16,4%; 1990-1999: 67,1%; 2000-2006:
5,1%.
Full-time worker: 32,9%; working student:
Occupation 19,2%; unemployed: 10,8%; full-time student
37,1%.
Lombardia: 39,4%; Puglia: 11,7%; Emilia-
Romagna: 7,5%; Italia: 7,5%; Veneto: 6,1%;
Piemonte: 5,6%; Italian residents living
Region of living abroad: 3,2%; Lazio: 2,8%; Marche: 2,8%;
Abruzzo: 2,3%; Liguria: 2,3%; Sicilia: 2,3%;
Campania: 1,8%; Sardegna: 1,8%; Toscana:
1,8%; Friuli Venezia-Giulia: 0,4%.

Information about demographics have been asked in order to create a connection with
the participants and to have a broader view and hypothesize a profile of the average
“Italian K-beauty purchaser”.

5.4.5 Identification of key research questions

The main purpose of my empirical study was to understand how popular Korean
cosmetics are among Italian consumers. Furthermore, my objective is to test whether
there’s a connection between the Italian’s knowledge of Korean cosmetics and their
exposure to social media and to the Internet in general. The final objective is to
understand the feasibility of entry for Korean cosmetics in Italy.
The purpose of the questionnaire was to answer the following questions:
• Are Korean cosmetics known at all by the Italian consumer population?
• How (in what format) are Italian customers exposed to Korean beauty products?

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• Are Korean cosmetics associated with other Korean cultural products?
• What channels do Italian consumers prefer to purchase Korean products from?

5.4.6 Results
The majority of the people who agreed to answer the questions of this survey were
women, with a percentage of 93,9 participants. This wasn’t a surprise, as they still
represent the majority of cosmetic customers. Nevertheless, the 5,6 percent of
participants, who were men, still wanted to make their own contribution. One
participant gave “genderfluid” as an answer. A person who is genderfluid prefers to
remain flexible about their gender identity rather than committing to a single gender
(Cronn-Mills, 2014).
The majority of the participants are also full-time students (37,1%), which is
understandable as the researcher is currently a full-time student as well; moreover, the
questionnaire has been spread through the online communities mentioned in the
previous chapter, with the same target. Nevertheless, a considerable portion of
participants is composed of full-time workers (32,9%) and of working students
(19,2%), with the least popular employment situation being unemployed (10,8%). The
latter situation is spread quite evenly among years of birth: 3 participants were born in
the years between 1973 and 1979; 4 participants were born in the 1980-1989 decade;
15 participants were born in the 1990-1999 decade; 1 participant was born in 2000.
Talking about the use of social media pages, participants were asked via a multiple-
choice question which ones they usually log in to, with the possibility to name more
than one social media page. Instagram was definitely the most popular answer (with
182 replies reading “Instagram”), followed by Facebook (with 167 replies reading
“Facebook” among other listed social media pages, always as the first one). In the third
place on the podium there is Pinterest, found in 42 answers. The least two popular
social media pages among the given options are Twitter, found in 41 answers, and
Snapchat, found in 4 answers. Participants were also given the possibility to add other
social media pages the researcher might have not being aware of or simply forgot to
list. The typed-in answers were (here written in order of frequency): Youtube, found
in 5 answers; LinkedIn, found in 3 answers; We Chat, Kakao Talk and Whatsapp, all
found in 2 answers each; Tumblr, Line and Blogger, all found in 1 answer each. Finally,

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participants were asked how often they access social media pages through a multiple-
choice question. The most popular answer, as expected, was “Più o meno 10 volte al
giorno/More or less 10 times per day”, with 161 answers. The second most popular
answer was “Fino a 3 volte al giorno/Up to 3 times per day”, with 43 answers. In the
third place on the podium there is the answer “Una volta al giorno/once a day”, which
has been chosen by 8 participants. Lastly, 1 participant opted for the “Più volte a
settimana/Few times a week” answer. The given option “Quasi mai/Rarely” was never
chosen as an answer.
Youtube-related questions have been asked separately, as it is not considered as social
media page but as a sharing platform by the researcher. First, participants have been
asked whether they access Youtube at all or not at all. 191 participants answered “Sì,
come utente/Yes, as a user”, making it the most chosen option. 16 participants
answered “Sì, come utente e come creator/Yes, both as a user and as a creator”.
Finally, one user opted for the “Sì, come creator/Yes, as a creator” answer, while 5
participants declared that they don’t access Youtube at all. Moreover, when
participants were asked how often they access the platform, in the form of an optional
multiple-choice question, these opted for: “Più volte a settimana/Few times a week”
117 times, “Tutti i giorni/Every day” 79 times and “Quasi mai/Rarely” 14 times.
Finally, participants were asked about the kind of content they look for on social media
pages and/or Youtube. They were given a few options to choose from, but they also
had the possibility to type-in their own answers. “Musica/music” received the most
votes (168 opted for it); “Bellezza e moda/Beauty and fashion” is second with 147
votes; the third most popular option was “Cucina/Cooking” with 75 votes; other given
options were: “Attualità/Current events”, chosen by 69 participants; “DIY – fai da te”,
chosen by 50 participants; “Vlog”, chosen by 47 participants;
“Videogiochi/videogames”, chosen by 26 participants; the least popular given option
was “Sport”, chosen by 21 participants. Moreover, these options were typed-in by
participants (here written in order of frequency): “Animali/Animals” with 3 votes;
“Lingue/Languages”, “Viaggi/Travelling” and “Asmr” (short for Autonomous Sensory
Meridian Response), with 2 votes each; “Collezionismo/Giocattoli/Collecting/Toys”,
“Letteratura/Literature”, “Medicina/Medicine”, “Cinema”, “Contenuti relativi a serie
TV e film/TV series and film-related content”, “Tecnologia/Technology”, “Design di

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interni/Interior design”, “Commentary videos”, “Interviste/Interviews”, “Show
coreani di ogni sorta/All kind of Korean shows”, “Cartoni animati per
bambini/Cartoons for kids”, “Trailer dei film/Film trailers”, “Recensioni/Reviews”,
“Sostenibilità/Sustainability” and “Multifandom” were all typed-in by one participant
each.
In the second part of the survey, participants were asked some questions about their
cosmetics-purchasing habits. First of all, participants have been asked whether they
purchase cosmetics at all or not at all. 202 participants answered in the affirmative,
while 11 participants declared that they don’t purchase cosmetics. Since there was the
“no” option in the question, the following multiple-choice question “Che tipo di
cosmetici le interessano di più?/What kind of cosmetics are you interested in the most?”
was not compulsory. Participants could choose one or more of the following options:
“Cura della pelle/Skincare”, which was chosen by 182 participants; “Trucco/Make-up”
was chosen by 161 participants; “Cura dei capelli/Hair care”, chosen by 101
participants; “Cura del corpo/Body care”, chosen by 65 participants. One participant
typed-in “Integratori/Supplements”. The next question, which was not mandatory to
answer as well, was an open question in which the participants were asked to name the
brands they were interested in the most: “Quali brand le interessano di più?/Which
brands are you interested in the most?”. 94 answers included at the name of at least
one brand. Answers are listed in order of popularity and in alphabetical order in case
of parity. The three most mentioned brands were Sephora (14), Kiko (13) and Mac
(10). Both the brands Benefit Cosmetics and Lush Cosmetics were mentioned 8 times;
the brands Bionike, Chanel, Dior, Essence and Yves Rocher were mentioned 6 times;
the brands Fenty Beauty, Garnier, L'Oreal, Maybelline and Missha were mentioned 5
times; the brands Huda Beauty, Innisfree, Make Up For Ever, Nabla, NYX, Too Faced,
Urban Decay, VeraLab and Vichy were all mentioned 4 times; the brands Avene,
Clinique, Etude House, La Roche Posay, Kat Von D, Lancôme, Mizon, Nars, Nature
Republic and TonyMoly were all mentioned 3 times; the brands 3CE, Benton, Bottega
Verde, Caudalie, ClioMakeUp, Cosrx, Dr. Jart+, Eterea Cosmetica, Kiehl’s, Korff,
Lierac, Moonshot, Mulac, Neve Cosmetics, PeriPera, The Ordinary, Whamisa and
Wycon were all mentioned 2 times; Finally, these brands were all mentioned in one
typed-in answer each: A’Pieu, Acqua di Rose, Akamuti, Alkemilla, Anastasia Beverly

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Hills, Antica Farmacia di Camaldoli, Aveeno, Avril, Banila Co., Biofficina Toscana,
Biogena, Bioline, Biotherm, Catrice, Collistar, Diego dalla Palma, Douglas, Dr.
Organic, Drunk Elephant, Equilibra, Estee Lauder, Guerlain, Helloskin, Herborist,
Holika Holika, Jeffree Star, Khadì, IOPE, I Provenzali, It’s Skin, L'Erbolario, Makeup
Revolution, Mark Jacobs, Neogen, Nivea, Nuxe, Pat McGrath, Pharmacy, Pixi Beauty,
Pony Cosmetics, PUPA, René Furterer, Rilastil, Rimmel, Secret Key, Shaka, Shiseido,
Shuemura, Skinfood, Smashbox, Somatoline, Tatcha, The Face Shop, Too Cool For
School, Uriage and YesTo.

Other replies (37 in total) concerned the type of brands or of products the participants
were interested in. In 20 answers participants expressed their preference towards “bio”
products (organic products in Italian), cruelty-free and natural products; in 4 answers
Korean cosmetics in general were mentioned; 4 “Un po’ di tutto/A bit of everything”;
3 participants declared that they don’t have a preference as they like to frequently
change and try new products; one participant mentioned “Asian products”; 2
participants declared that they prefer to focus on the price-quality ratio of a product
than on the brand itself; one answer was about French brands; one participant answered
“Too Many!”; one participant declared that he/she couldn’t name any brands.
Later, participants have been asked some questions more K-beauty-related. In
particular, they have been asked an opinion on the popularity of K-beauty in Italy.
First, participants have been asked whether they know Korean cosmetics at all or not
at all. 147 participants out of 213 answered in the affirmative, while 66 participants
answered “No”. Again, since there was the “no” option in the question, the following
multiple choice question “Che tipo di prodotti di cosmesi coreana crede che sia più
popolare in Italia?/What kind of Korean cosmetics do you think are more popular in
Italy?” and the open question “Quali brand di cosmesi coreana crede che siano più
popolari in Italia?/Which Korean cosmetic brands do you think are the most popular
in Italy?” were not compulsory. In the former, the most popular answer was “Cura
della pelle/Skincare” with 182 votes, followed by: “Trucco/Make-up”, chosen by 47
participants; “Cura del corpo/Body care”, chosen by 26 participants; “Cura dei
capelli/Hair care”, chosen by 15 participants. 3 participants typed-in the answer “Non
lo so/I don’t know” while one participant typed-in the answer “Solari/Sunscreen”.

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About the answers of the latter questions, they are listed in order of popularity and in
alphabetical order in case of parity in the table below. 90 answers included at the name
of at least one brand.

“Quali brand di cosmesi coreana crede che siano più popolari in Italia?/Which
Korean cosmetic brands do you think are the most popular in Italy?”

• TonyMoly (51)
• Missha (19)
• Dr Jart+ (15)
• Too Cool For School (13)
• Etude House (12)

• Whamisa (7)

• HolikaHolika (5)
• Klairs (5)
• Innisfree (5)

• Benton (4)
• Skinfood (4)

• Caolion (3)
• Joawe (3)
• Mizon (3)
• Nature Republic (3)

• Elizavecca (2)
• Erborian (2)

• 3CE

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 • belif
• Bonair
• Cosrx
• Huangjisoo
• Kocostar
• It’s Skin
• Laneige
• Perderma
• Shangpree
• The Face Shop
• Urang

19 participants typed-in the answer “Non lo so/I don’t know”, one participant answered
“Quelli carini e quelli bio/The cute and organic ones”, one participant answered “Miin”
(which is not a Korean beauty brand but a K-beauty retailer, as it will be shown in the
next chapter) and one participant answered “Quelli in vendita da Sephora/Those sold
at Sephora”.
The next step was asking the participants about how they got to know K-Beauty. First,
they were asked the multiple-choice question “A seconda del suo grado di conoscenza
dell’ambito, come ha saputo dell'esistenza dei prodotti cosmetici “Made in
Korea”?/According to your degree of knowledge on the topic, how did you get to know
the existence of “Made in Korea” products?”. Among the given options, the most
popular were “Social media”; “Youtube”; “industria dello spettacolo coreana/Korean
entertainment industry (K-pop, K-drama)”; “media tradizionali italiani (giornali, radio,
tv…)/Italian-broadcasted traditional media (newspapers, radio, tv…)”, with 131, 78,
57 and 11 votes respectively. However, a lot of typed-in answers were given as well.
Besides the “Non li conosco/I don’t know them” answer given by 11 participants and
the “Conosciuti tramite questo sondaggio/I discovered them through this survey” given
by 2 participants, the following answers were typed-in: “Amici/Friends” (5 times);
“Amici coreani/Korean friends” (3 times); “Viaggio in Corea/Travel in Korea” (2
times); “Ho un’amica che è un’appassionata/I have a friend who’s an aficionado” (2
times); “Vivo in Corea/I live in Korea” (1 time); “Passaparola/Word of mouth” (1 time);

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“Medico estetico/Cosmetic doctor” (1 time); “Il mio fidanzato è coreano/My boyfriend
is Korean” (1 time); “Esperienza sul territorio/Hands-on experience” (1 time). Then,
participants were asked through which format they got to know K-beauty products.
Among the given options, the most popular were “Recensioni di blogger e
youtuber/Reviews by bloggers and youtubers”; “Pubblicità online (banner)/Online
banners”; “Inserimenti a fini pubblicitari in serie tv/Product placement in tv series”;
“Pubblicità per strada/Street advertising”, with 156, 54, 28 and 5 votes respectively.
However, a lot of typed-in answers were given as well. Besides the “Non li conosco/I
don’t know them” answer given by 9 participants and the “Conosciuti tramite questo
sondaggio/I discovered them through this survey” given by 2 participants, the
following answers were typed-in: “Parlando con amici/Chatting with friends”, given
by 7 participants; “Visti in negozio/Seen in shops”, given by 3 participants;
“Riviste/Magazines”, given by 2 participants; “Regalo/Gift”, “Personaggi popolari
scelti come volto di alcune campagne pubblicitarie/Popular personalities chosen as
presenters for advertising campaigns” and “Sono stato in Corea più volte/I’ve been to
Korea more than once”, given by one participant each.
Later, participants were asked some questions about their K-beauty-purchasing habits.
First, participants were asked if they ever bought Korean cosmetics or not: 119
participants answered “Yes” while 94 answered “No”.
Participants could choose one or more of the following options: “Cura della
pelle/Skincare”, which was chosen by 165 participants; “Trucco/Make-up” was chosen
by 66 participants; “Cura dei capelli/Hair care”, chosen by 24 participants; “Cura del
corpo/Body care”, chosen by 22 participants. The answers “Solari/Sunscreen” and
“Tutti, per lavoro/All of them for work” were typed-in by one participant each. The
next question, which was not mandatory, was an open question in which the
participants were asked to name the K-beauty brands they were interested in the most.
Answers are listed in order of popularity and in alphabetical order in case of parity in
the table below. 78 answers included at the name of at least one brand.

“Quali brand di cosmesi coreana le interessano di più?/Which K-beauty brands are

you interested in the most?”

• Missha (21) • Innisfree (19)

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• Cosrx (14) • Dr Jart+ (3)
• Too Cool for School (3)
• Etude House (12)
• Whamisa (12) • Banila Co. (2)
• Blithe (2)
• Klairs (11) • Caolion (2)
• Erborian (2)
• Benton (10)
• Keep Cool (2)

• Nature Republic (9) • Secret Key (2)

• TonyMoly (9) • The Face Shop (2)

• The Saem (2)

• 3CE (8)
• Etude House (8) • 3W CLINIC
• Acwell

• Neogen (7) • Belif

• E Nature

• Laneige (6) • Elizavecca

• Mizon (6) • ENOUGH

• Espoir

• A'Pieu (5) • Helloskin

• Peripera (5) • Huangjisoo

• Skinfood (5) • Jowae

• Kocostar
• Holika Holika (4) • IOPE
• It’s Skin (4) • Make P:rem
• Mediheal (4) • Mamonde
• Moonshot (4) • SK-II
• Urang (4) • Skin79
• Some By Mi
• Aromatica (3) • The History of Woo
• Bonair (3) • VT

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 • Welcos

The next section of the survey regarded the exposure Italian customers have towards
K-beauty products in Italian physical beauty stores and online beauty stores. First of
all, participants were asked if they ever noticed K-beauty products in physical beauty
stores or pharmacies: out of all 213 participants, 120 of them answered “No” while the
remaining 93 answered “Yes”. Also in this section, since there was the “no” option in
the question, the following and the open question “Se sì, specifichi dove (anche nome
e luogo del negozio)/In case of yes, specify where (including the name and the location
of the store)” was not compulsory. Answers are listed in order of popularity and in
alphabetical order in case of parity in the table below. 89 answers included at the name
of at least one physical store.

“Se sì, specifichi dove (anche nome e luogo del negozio)/In case of yes, specify
where (including the name and the location of the store)”
• Sephora (74): Not specified (65); Milano (5); Bologna (1); Campania (1);
Roma (1); San Giovanni Teatino (CH) (1)
• OVS (21): Not specified (17); Bergamo (1); Bologna (1); Milano (1); Reggio
Emilia (1)
• Farmacia/Chemist’s (7): Not specified (6); Pesaro (PU) (1)
• Coin (3): Not specified (2); Milano (1)
• Miin Cosmetics (Milano) (3)
• H&M (Location Not Specified) (2)
• La Rinascente (Milano) (2)
• Parafarmacia/Pharmacy (2): Brugherio (MB) (1); Milano (1)
• Limoni (Location Not Specified) (1)
• Roma (Store Not Specified) (1)
• Profumeria/Perfumery (Location Not Specified) (1)

Secondly, participants were asked if they ever noticed K-beauty products in online
beauty stores: out of all 213 participants, 113 of them answered “No”, 95 answered
“Yes” while the remaining did not answer. Also in this section, since there was the

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“no” option in the question, the following and the open question “Se sì, specifichi il
nome del negozio online/In case of yes, specify the name of the online store” was not
compulsory. Answers are listed in order of popularity and in alphabetical order in case
of parity in the table below. 83 answers included at the name of at least one physical
store.

“Se sì, specifichi il nome del negozio online/In case of yes, specify the name of the
online store”

• Sephora.it (32)
• My Beauty Routine (28)
• Amazon (8)
• Ecco Verde (8)
• Miin Cosmetics (8)

• Miloon (4)
• Baqueen (3)
• Maison Loo (3)
• Notino (3)
• The K Beauty (3)

• BB Cream Italia (2)

• Maquibeauty.it (2)

• ASOS
• Bellaecobio
• BellaMi
• Beautytude
• Glamourflare
• Han River Shop
• Lookfantastic.it

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 • Pink Panda
• Privalia
• Yumibio

Participants were also asked if they ever looked into Korean beauty on their own
initiative and why. While the most popular answer was “No” – chosen by 79
participants – 71 out of all 213 participants answered “Sì, per saperne di più e
successivamente acquistarli/Yes, to learn more about them and subsequently buy
them”. There’s a slight difference between the popularity of the third and the fourth
most popular answers: “Sì, per acquistarli/Yes, to purchase them” and “Sì, per saperne
di più/Yes, to learn more about them”, chosen by 32 and 29 participants respectively.
The two least popular answers, which were typed-in by two different participants, were
“No ma lo faro/No but I will” and “Sì, per tutti i motivi sopra elencati e per
recensirli/Yes, for all the reasons listed above and to review them”.
Then, participants were asked whether they were more likely to purchase Korean
cosmetic products on Italy-based online stores or in physical stores located in Italy and
to type the name of the store/stores of their choice. Answering to this question was not
compulsory, since there was the “no” option in the prior question. However, as it will
be shown in the table below, some participant didn’t fully answer the question. The
results were retrieved among 97 typed-in answers.

“Ha acquistato cosmetici coreani più frequentemente su negozi online italiani o in

negozi fisici italiani? Specifichi il nome dei siti web o dei negozi fisici./Do you
buy Korean cosmetics more frequently in Italian online stores or in Italian
physical stores? Specify the names of the websites or physical stores.”
• Online stores: My Beauty Routine (22); Amazon (9); Baqueen (4); Ecco
Verde (4); The K Beauty (4); Ebay (3); Glamourflare (2); Maison Loo;
Miloon; Sephora; Not specified (11)
• Physical stores: Sephora (23); Oviesse (8); Miin Cosmetics (5);
Greenmaison; Coin; The Beautyaholic's Shop; Not specified (3)

More typed-in answers not listed in the table above were about participants not buying
K-beauty products in physical and online stores located in Italy. In particular, Hong

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Kong-based online store Yesstyle was typed-in as an answer 6 times, followed by
South-Korea based online stores Jolse, Wishtrend and RoseRoseShop, each of them
typed-in once. 5 participants didn’t specify the name of the foreign online store they
purchase K-beauty products from. Finally, 2 participants declared they usually
purchase K-beauty products in physical stores in South Korea and 2 participants didn’t
specify the country in which the physical stores they purchase K-beauty products from
are located.
Later, participants have been asked an opinion on the current situation of the
promotion of K-beauty in Italy. First of all, they were asked to evaluate, through a 5-
point Likert-scale, how much they agreed with the following statement: “Credo che
negli ultimi anni la promozione di prodotti di cosmesi coreana in Italia sia
aumentata”/“I reckon the promotion of Korean cosmetic products in Italy has
increased over the last few years”. Overall, the results strive towards agreeing with
the statement: 13 people chose the “Non sono affatto d’accordo/Strongly disagree”
answer; 34 people chose the “Non sono d’accordo/Disagree” answer; 61 people chose
the median answer, which can be considered as “Neutro/Neutral”; the answers “Sono
d’accordo/Agree” and “Sono molto d’accordo/Strongly agree” were chosen by 52 and
53 participants respectively. Later, participants were provided a multiple-choice
further question to expand on their answers in order to avoid discrepancies and
unusable data. In particular, they were asked more information on the kind of
promotion they noticed. The options given by the researcher were the most chosen:
“Più recensioni/contenuto multimediale [caricato] su social media e/o Youtube/More
reviews/media content [uploaded] on social media and/or Youtube” was chosen by
153 participants; “Più disponibilità nei negozi online italiani/More availability on
Italian online shops”, “Più disponibità nei negozi fisici italiani/More availability in
Italian physical shops” and “Più pubblicità online (banner)/More online banners”
were chosen by 81, 68 and 57 participants respectively; moreover, the answers “Più
attività e/o eventi legati alla cosmesi coreana in Italia/more Italy-located
events/activities dealing with Korean cosmetics” and “Più pubblicità per strada/More
billboards” were chosen by 33 and 6 participants respectively; also, one participant
typed-in the answer “Amici mi chiedono la marca/Friends ask me information about
brands”. The remaining 13 participants typed-in several versions of a negative answer:

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from “Niente/Nothing” (3), “Non conosco/I don’t know any” (2), “Non ho notato
niente/I haven’t noticed” (6) to “Non saprei/I’m not sure” (2). Finally, participants
were provided room to answer the open question “Pensa che si potrebbe fare altro per
promuovere i prodotti di cosmesi coreana in Italia? Se sì, cosa?/Do you think K-beauty
products could be further promoted in Italy? If so, how?”, which was not mandatory.
74 participants contributed and their answers can be found in the table below, some of
them gathered into “macro-answers”.

“Pensa che si potrebbe fare altro per promuovere i prodotti di cosmesi coreana in
Italia? Se sì, cosa?/Do you think K-beauty products could be further promoted in
Italy? If so, how?”
• Pubblicità/Advertisement (19): Pubblicità in TV/TV commercials (8);
pubblicità sui social media/ads on social media platforms (3); più pubblicità
sulla rete/more online banners (1); pubblicità su riviste femminili/ads on
women’s magazines (1); branded content (1); media tradizionali/traditional
media (2); Not specified (6)
• Recensioni/Reviews (4)
• Canali Youtube dedicati/Dedicated Youtube channels (1)
• Prezzi più accessibili/More affordable prices (1)
• Più disponibilità/More availability: negozi offline/in offline shops (5); on
Amazon; fiere/at exhibitions/fairs (2); in parafarmacia/at pharmacies (2)
• Divulgare più informazioni via/Spreading more information through: nei
negozi/more in-store promotion (6); articoli su magazine online di moda e
bellezza/in articles on fashion and beauty e-zines (1); informazione sulla
routine di bellezza coreana e i suoi benefici/general information on the
Korean skincare ritual and its benefits (7); bloggers and youtubers (2)
• Più campioncini/More samples (2)
• Importare più prodotti che funzionano oltre a quelli con il packaging
cute/Import more effective products and not only products with a cute
packaging (2); Importare più brand/import more brands (3)

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In the last section of the survey, participants were asked more questions related to
Korean culture. First of all, they were asked an open question about the first thing that
comes to their mind when they hear the word “South Korea”. 206 participants
contributed and their answers can be found in the table below, some of them gathered
into “macro-answers”.

“A cosa le fa pensare la Corea del Sud? Qual è la prima cosa che le viene in
mente?/What does South Korea make you think of? What's the first thing that
jumps out at you?”
• Musica/Music: K-Pop (34); Not specified (4); BTS – Bangtan Sonyeondan
(3); PSY’s Gangnam Style (2); idol/idols (1).
• Cinema/Films: Not specified (2); Castaway on the Moon (1).
• Drama (10).
• Bellezza/Beauty: Cura della pelle/Skincare (12); Pelle perfetta/Beautiful skin
(10); Not specified (9); Cosmetici/Cosmetics (6); Donne curate/Well-
groomed women (4); Chirurgia plastica/Plastic surgery (3); Cura della
persona/Personal care (2); Routine di bellezza/Beauty routine (2);
Benessere/Wellbeing (1); Capelli curati/Well-groomed hair (1); Maschere in
tessuto/Sheet masks (1); Trucchi/Make-up (1).
• Cibo/Food: Not specified (15); Kimchi (5); cibo tradizionale/traditional
food (2); Noodles (2); barbeque coreano/Korean BBQ (1); soju (1); the/tea
(1).
• Politica/Politics: North Korea (12); Guerra di Corea/Korean War (4);
Guerra/War (3); Not specified (1).
• Paese/Country: Seul/Seoul (10); Città/Cities (3); Samsung (3); Arte/Art (2);
Fiori/Flowers (2); Isola di Jeju/Jeju Island (2); Lingua coreana/Korean
language (2); Tecnologia/Technology (2); Fiori di ciliegio/Cherry blossoms
(1); Kia (1); Natura/Nature (1).
• Altro/Other: Non so/I don’t know (6); Oriente/the East of the world (2);
Cristina Yang (1); eccentricità/eccentricity (1); Efficienza/efficiency (1);
Realtà lontana dalla propria/Different lifestyle (1).

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Then, participants were asked whether they ever visited South Korea or not, with 25
out of 213 answers being “Sì/Yes” and 183 being “No”. Also, they were asked about
their personal degree of knowledge of the Korean language. Participants opted to chose
only among already-given answers: “Nessuna/None” (118); “Non la parlo ma riesco a
distinguerla da altre lingue asiatiche/No but I can tell the difference with other Asian
languages” (50); “Sì, la parlo un po’/Yes, I can speak it a little” (30); “Sì, la parlo
bene/Yes, I can speak it well” (15). Moreover, participants were asked to specify,
through a multiple-choice question, which cultural products in Korean language they
ever came into contact. The answers chosen by the participants were: Musica/Music
(111); Youtube (79); Serie tv/Tv series (70); Nessuno/None (68); Social media (62);
Cinema/Films (57). More answers, these all typed-in by participants, were: Cibo/Food
(4); Libri/Books (2); Riviste/Magazines (2); Cosmetici/Cosmetics (2).
For the last open question, participants were asked whether they were able to name
one or more public figures of Korean nationality or not. 89 participants contributed
and their answers can be found in the table below, some of them gathered into “macro-
answers”.

“Conosce personaggi pubblici di nazionalità coreana (cantanti/gruppi; attori;

youtuber/influencer; etc)? Specificare i nomi./Do you know any public figure of
Korean nationality (singers/groups; actors; youtubers/influencers; etc)? Please
name them.”
• Musica/Music: Not specified (5); gruppi maschili/male groups: BTS (29);
EXO (15); BIGBANG (11); NCT (7); iKON (5); GOT7 (4); Monsta X (4);
SEVENTEEN (4); Shinee (4); Block B (2); Pentagon (2); Stray Kids (2);
Ateez (1); BTOB (1); DBSK/TVXQ (1); Day6 (1); Epik High (1); FtIsland
(1); INFINITE (1); Shinhwa (1); Super Junior (1); gruppi femminili/female
groups: Blackpink (10); Red Velvet (6); Girls Generation (4); Mamamoo
(2); TWICE (2); 2ne1 (1); Gugudan (1); Momoland (1); Sistar (1);
solisti/solo artists: PSY (6); Hyuna (2); Amber Liu (1); beenzino (1); Dean
(1); G-Dragon (1); hyukoh (1); Jay Park (1); IU (1); Lee Dongahe (1); Roy
Kim (1); Sunmi (1); Taeyeon (1);
• Cinema e serie TV/Films and dramas: Not specified (1); Attori/actors: Lee
Jong Suk (5); Gong Yoo (4); Park Seo-joon (4); Nam Joo Hyuk (3); Hyun

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 Bin (2); Lee Min Ho (2); Park Hyung Sik (2); Jo In-sung (1); Jung Il Woo
(1); Kim Woo Bin (1); Ha Jung Woo (1); Ji Chang Wook (1); Im Soo-jung
(1); Lee Dong Wook (1); Lee Jae Joon (1); Lee Jong Suk (1); Lee Jun-ho (1);
Lee Kwang Soo (1); Lee Tae Hwan (1); Park Bogum (1); Song Joongki (1);
Steven Yeun (1); Shin Hyun-Joon (1); Attrici/actresses: Park Shin Hye (4);
Park Min Young (3); Lee Sung-kyung (2); IU (1); Cristina Yang (1); Jun Ji
Hyun (1); Jung So-min (1); Park Bo Young (1); Yoo In-Na (1); regista/film
director Park Chan Wook (3);
• Bellezza/Beauty: Imprenditrice/entrepreneur Charlotte Cho (2)
• Altro/Other: No (23); Non ricordo i nomi/I can’t remember the names (2);
• Youtube/Instagram: Make-up artist PONY Syndrome (12); Make-up artist
Edward Avila (3); Influencer Jenn Im (1); Scuola di danza/dance school
1million (1); Youtuber Gotoe (2); Youtuber Jella (2); Influencer this is maté
(1); Youtuber suggi (1); Youtuber EuniUnni (3); Youtuber sibongtv (1);
Youtuber JFlaMusic (1); Youtuber Big Marvel (1); ballerina/dancer Hyojin
Choi (1); ballerina/dancer Lia Kim (1); Youtuber MINTHEWORLD (2);
Youtuber Grazy Grace (1); Youtuber SeoulMafia (1), Youtube channel
SuriNoel (1); Make-up artist EVA (1); Make-up artist RISABAE (1);
Youtuber: Joan Kim (1); Youtuber: QYOUNG (1).

5.4.7 Considerations on the results

Starting from the research questions listed in the previous chapter, a few points will be
made.

5.4.7.1 Are Korean cosmetics known at all by the Italian consumer population?
The first point the researcher is going to make deals with the actual exposure of Italians
to Korean cosmetics. In fact, according to the results of the survey, the Italian
population – especially the population portion more willing to answer the questions,
that is female participants – is currently exposed to Korean cosmetic products being
promoted and sold in the country. Moreover, as is understandable from the
demographics table, the Lombardy region – especially its chief town Milan – is where
more of half the participants, who answered affirmatively to the question whether they

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know Korean cosmetics at all or not at all, is from. To be more specific, they are 56
out of the 147 participants who replied in the affirmative – that is, 38.1% out of the
69% of all participants, which means more than half of them. All of them are females.
This can be also noticed by looking through the list of the names of the Italy-based
physical stores named by the participants in which they noticed Korean beauty
products being promoted and sold: out of the 74 times that multinational chain Sephora
was mentioned, the location “Milano” was specified in five answers – unfortunately,
most locations were not specified at all. However, the domicile of twenty nine
participants who answered this question – besides the five ones who specified “Milano”
as location – is in Lombardy: 19 live in Milan (both the city and the province); 4 live
in Bergamo (both the city and the province); 2 live in the Monza-Brianza province and
in Brescia respectively; 2 live in Varese and Pavia, one for each city. That said, what
the researcher could assume is that the Sephora stores these twenty-nine participants
referred to are located approximately in the same city as they are domiciled. The same
goes for Italian joint-stock company Coin, for which the location “Milano” was
specified in one out of three answers. However, as in the Sephora case, the two
participants who didn’t specify the location of the Coin store are both domiciled in
Milan. Finally, multinational Korean beauty retailer Miin Cosmetics, whose only
Italy-based physical store is located in Milan, was mentioned in three answers.

5.4.7.2 How (in what format) are Italian customers exposed to Korean beauty
products?
The second point the researcher is going to make deals with the kind of format Italian
customers are exposed to Korean cosmetics. Talking about all participants,
“Recensioni di blogger e youtuber/Reviews by bloggers and youtubers” was the most
opted answer. One example of this kind of content is actually created by Italian-based
K-beauty retailer My Beauty Routine CEO, Alessandra, who regularly uploads Italian-
spoken video reviews on My Beauty Routine’s Youtube channel of beauty products
sold on the website. Alessandra’s reviews don’t deal with one product only, but also
with ideal skincare routines for a certain skin type or a certain season.
Other examples of this kind of content, created in South Korea and in the US, were
provided by the participants in the last question of the survey, where they were asked

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to name celebrities of Korean nationality. Talking about bloggers, Korean-American
entrepreneur Charlotte Cho is the closest personality fitting in this category among the
ones provided by participants themselves. She is co-founder and co-CEO of New York
City-based K-beauty retailer Soko Glam (https://sokoglam.com). In order to introduce
the Korean “10-step routine” to consumers in the United States and educate them to
the Korean beauty mindset, Cho and co-founder and co-CEO Dave Cho decided to
start a side-project linked to their online store in 2013, just one year after the launch
of Soko Glam – The Klog. Through the latter, Charlotte Cho aims to, as stated on the
website’s “About” section:
We take pride in providing useful and compelling content, meaning that when we feature
a product in an article or video, we do so because we sincerely believe that you will see
results. We never accept payment to include products in any of our content.
Whether you’re a skin care novice discovering the double-cleanse method for the first
time, or a pro experimenting with chemical exfoliants, consider us a resource, guide, and
friend who is here with and for you every step of the way4.

4
https://theklog.co/about/

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The reviews in the section with the same name deal with products sold on Soko Glam
– as suggested also by the subheading “What to know before you add to cart” –
including Charlotte Cho’s premium skincare line Then I Met You. Furthermore, the
content posted on the website includes several categories besides the “Reviews” one,
such as: “The Basics”, where K-beauty pillars, such as the 10-step routine, are
introduced; “Skincare”, whose content is written regarding a certain skin-type (dry,
combination, oily, sensitive and normal), beauty routine step (cleansing and so on) or
skin concern (acne, wrinkles and such); “Lifestyle”, whose content is related to Korean
pop culture, fashion and beauty trends; “Community”, in which answers are given to
the readers’ questions by the Soko Glam’s staff, including Charlotte Cho herself.
As for youtubers, several names of Korean or Korea-based personalities were provided.
In fact, although it was specified by the researcher, not all names provided by
participants referred to Korean personalities.
The most named Youtube personality was Korean make-up artist PONY Syndrome,
whose Youtube channel alone counts 5.125.038 subscribers as of June 2019. The least
recent video found on her channel dates back to March 2015. The format common to
each video can be summarized as: Korean-spoken, English-subbed make-up tutorials
– from steps preceding the application of make-up, such as skincare, to its completion
– during which each product used by the youtuber is briefly reviewed by her. Moreover,
in a few more recent videos – starting from 2016 – the shooting and consequent upload
on Youtube of these make-up tutorials was aimed to promote collaborations between
PONY Syndrome and make-up brands, such as: Korean brands Etude House, Missha,
Mamonde; French brands Clinique, Dior, Givenchy; Japanese brands shu emura,
Shiseido; Canadian brand MAC; American brand bareMinerals.
The second most named beauty Youtube personalities are, with three votes each,
Edward Avila and Eunice Cho a.k.a. EuniUnni. Both youtubers are Asian-American –
the former of Filipino ethnicity and the latter of Korean ethnicity – but they both live
and work in South Korea. This means, first of all, that their videos are recorded in
English, making their content more accessible than those recorded in Korean. However,
the content they make might be considered different from PONY Syndrome’s.
Edward Avila’s Youtube channel counts 1.340.128 subscribers as of June 2019. The
least recent video found on his channel dates back to February 2013. Avila’s video

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reviews are mostly related to make-up, and the pattern is similar to the one of PONY
Syndrome’s: he reviews the products he uses as he applies them to create a final make-
up look. Said make-up looks usually deal with new lines from a certain brand or with
looks inspired from K-pop stars. However, in contrast to PONY Syndrome’s videos,
he also uploads videos of himself putting make-up on guests – K-pop celebrities,
fellow youtubers, friends – and reviews recorded in make-up stores in South Korea.
Eunice Cho started her YouTube career as one of the hosts of beauty Youtube channel
Wishtrend TV. Her personal Youtube channel EuniUnni counts 98.528 subscribers as
of June 2019. The least recent video found on her channel dates back to January 2016.
Her reviews mostly deal with skincare products, from their ingredients, properties and
benefits to the right application to the skin. Other videos on her channel deal with K-
pop-inspired make-up looks and skincare trends such as “glass skin”, a routine
consisting of a few steps in which every product used will make the skin shine like
glass.
The option “Inserimenti a fini pubblicitari in serie tv/Product placement in tv series”
allowed the researcher to introduce the phenomenon of product placement in K-dramas.
Product placement “involves incorporating brands in movies in return for money or
for some promotional or other consideration” (Gupta and Gould 1997). Russell (1998)
considers that there are three types of product placement: visual placement, placing
the brand in the background of the set a show; auditory or verbal placement, in which
the brand is mentioned in a dialogue; and plot placement, in which the product
becomes part of the plot. Other scholars have categorized product placement into
“simple arrangement” and “integrated placement.” In simple arrangement, brands are
featured in three primary ways: first, the product itself can be seen either in the
background or, more desirably, as actually being used; secondly, a corporate logo,
insignia, trademark, or other identifying feature may be shown; thirdly, an
advertisement, such as a billboard or television commercial, may be placed in a scene
as “ambiance” in the background (Smith, 1985). “Integrated placement” or “product
integration” refers to the ways in which product placement becomes a key feature of
the show’s plotline, and thus becomes part of the script (Wenner 2004). “Integral
placement” requires planning at various stages from the basic concept to the themes
and plot developments. Product placement differs from traditional advertising, which

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Although the actual publicity effects of the subtitled acknowledgement of corporate
names that is displayed for only few seconds are clearly limited, independent
producers try to attract investment through sponsorship. In return, while the direct
revelation of brand names or corporate logos in the middle of a show is thoroughly
prohibited, most dramas try to suggest the exhibited brand names through characters
who mention particular functions of a product, displays of similar logos or unique
interiors of a certain franchise. Things changed in January 2010 when the Korea
Communications Commission, the nation’s broadcasting regulator, eased regulations
concerning product placement in television programs on national networks. Under the
new law, all television programs except news, documentaries, and editorial and debate
shows are allowed to display brand names and corporate logos. Since this law came
into effect, there has been a fundamental transformation in the channels of production
funding and, more importantly, in storytelling, in Korean television dramas. There has
also been a major change in the commodification of the narrative: while the
conventional method for securing better advertisement effects consists in presenting
better stories in order to attract more viewers, product placement turns the drama story
itself into a host of advertisements, using anecdotes and dialogues to display brands
and products, not to tell stories. Moreover, the invasion of commercial sponsorship
has narrowed the genre, characters, and storylines of modern dramas in ways that
easily enable the insertion of product placements. “Trendy dramas” that are typically
based on modern Cinderella stories seem to be the most attractive stories for
commercial sponsors, and often display luxury cars and designer brands; here, the
display of commodities as well as the storyline targets viewers’ vanity. Characters are
written with attributes that are designed to accommodate more product placement; for
example, upper-class characters are often presented because they facilitate the display
of more brand products. Thanks to live production, the stories of Korean dramas are
extremely flexible, so producers are always able to add scenes of product placement
even in the middle of a series. Of course, this heightened commercialism diminishes
the diversity and creativity of the stories in Korean dramas (Oh, 2013).
In order to show two actual examples of this phenomenon in the K-beauty industry,
the case of two actresses mentioned by participants will be taken into consideration:

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Park Shin Hye in Memories of the Alhambra and Lee Sung-Kyung in Weightlifting
Fairy Kim Bok-Joo.
In Memories of the Alhambra (December 1st, 2018 – January 20th, 2019), Park Shin
Hye plays the main female character Jung Hee-joo. In the 6th episode, she applies
colored lipbalm as she gets ready for a romantic meeting with the main male character
Yoo Jin-woo. The product used is Creamy Tint Color Balm Intense in Iconic Rose by
Korean beauty brand Mamonde and it is easily recognizable by the zoom-in scene on
the character’s boudoir.

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A detailed frame of a few products by Mamonde.

In Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo (November 16th, 2016 – January 11th, 2017), Lee
Sung-Kyung plays the main female character Bok-Joo, a gifted weightlifter attending
the Kinesiology faculty at Hanwool University.
In the 7th episode, she applies moisturizer as she gets ready for a romantic meeting
with the main male character Jung Joon Hyung. The product used is Water Bank
Moisture Creamy by Laneige and it is easily recognizable by the zoom-in on the
character’s hands while holding the jar.

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A detailed frame of Water Bank Moisture Cream by Laneige.

In both the scenes in which the two main characters apply skincare products and make-
up, their brand is not essential to the storylines of the dramas. However, it could be
assumed that the usage of skincare and make-up is associated with the will of
emphasize one’s own outer beauty for a special occasion.
Talking about those participants who opted for “Pubblicità per strada/Street
advertising”, two out of five of them are domiciled in Milan and one in Modena –

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unfortunately, the remaining two only claimed they lived in Italy. The researcher was
able to collect pictures of some digital advertisements of Korean beauty brand Nature
Republic in different locations in Milan.

A screen advertising in Piazza San Babila, Milano. Courtesy of Cosmetmin.

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A screen advertising in Piazza Gae Aulenti, Milano. Courtesy of Cosmetmin.

A screen advertising in Piazzale Cadorna, Milano. Courtesy of Cosmetmin.

5.4.7.3 Are Korean cosmetics associated with other Korean cultural products?

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Since Korean cultural products, such as K-pop and K-drama, have been already
discussed in previous chapters, a point will be made on the link between K-pop stars
and K-beauty exclusively. The cases of the two most mentioned male groups by
participants, BTS and EXO, will be taken into consideration.
BTS has been collaborating with two brands for several projects. They signed a
contract with Korean beauty brand Mediheal in 2016 and with Korean beauty brand
VT Cosmetics in 2017. A unique feature of the group’s both collaborations is the
involvement, besides of their own image, of their avatars BT21. BT21 is the first
project of LINE FRIENDS CREATORS with the collaboration of BTS. Rather than
simply creating avatars of the physical appearance of artists, BT21 consists of 8
different charming characters created by BTS members, where all of them actively
participated in the whole process from drawing sketches to elaboration5.

Left to right: Mediheal’s mask collection featuring BT21; Mediheal mask collection Medihealing with
BTS.

5
Retrieved from https://www.bt21.com/about on June 10, 2019

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Left to right: VT’s first make-up collection featuring BT21; VT make-up collection The Sweet Special
Edition SET featuring BTS.

Exo has been collaborating with brand Nature Republic since August 2013. From that
year on, two formats were followed. In the one pictured above, each collection by the
brand was produced in two different versions: a basic one and one featuring Exo. Each
member of the group is associated with the main ingredient of a mask set, which is in
turn associated with a specific color.

Left to right: Nature Republic’s Real Comforting Mask Sheet line; the same line featuring Exo.

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In the other format, such as in the case of TV commercials, the members show how
they use the product and for which occasion – near the pool, before riding a motorbike,
while taking the dog for a walk.

Exo members about to show how to apply Nature Republic’s Aloe Sun Stick.

5.4.7.4 What channels do Italian consumers prefer to purchase Korean products from?
In the survey, 85 participants out of 213 expressed a preference on the Italian-based
channel through which they buy Korean beauty products. As can be seen from the
survey results, participants prefer to buy Korean beauty products from online stores
(49 times preferred) rather than from physical stores (42 times preferred). A few
participants expressed a preference for both.
The age of the participants is not a discriminating factor on the preference. In fact,
among those participants who declared they prefer to buy K-beauty products online,
the age distribution is the following: 1960-1968: 2,3%; 1973-1979: 16,5%; 1980-1989:
16,5%; 1990-1999: 22,3%; 2000-2006: 0%. On the other hand, among those
participants who declared they prefer to buy K-beauty products in physical shops, the
age distribution is the following: 1960-1968: 0%; 1973-1979: 1,2%; 1980-1989:
3,5%;1990-1999: 35,2%; 2000-2006: 2,3%.
Discriminating factors on the preference could be the city in which the participants are
domiciled and the accessibility of products in the physical shops; in fact, 35 of the 49
participants who prefer to buy K-beauty products online are from outside Lombardy,

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the region in which most physical stores are located. Also, 19 of them claimed that
they never noticed K-beauty products being sold in physical shops and suggested a
better promotion of said products through the sale in physical stores.
What could be also linked to this preference is the reason behind participants looking
for information on products on the Internet. The 5 participants who declared they don’t
look for information on the Internet all buy beauty products in physical stores, such as
Sephora and OVS.

6 Interview
6.1 What is an interview?
Interviews are widely used in communication, the social sciences, the humanities,
business, and other fields of inquiry to gain an understanding of cultural, sociological,
psychological, linguistic, and consumer behavior (Briggs, 1986; Giles, Bourhis, &
Taylor, 1977; Hall, 1989; Neuman, 2011). The purpose of interviewing is to ask
questions and get answers from the participants involved in a study in order to discover
knowledge. Interviewing has three traditional approaches: structured, semi-structured,
and unstructured.
The approach used in this study is the structured interview. With this type of interview
protocol, the interviewer: 1) prepares all the questions ahead of time (called an
interview guide); 2) asks each participant the exact same questions in the exact same
order; 3) has few if any open-ended questions in the interview guide (such questions
allow the participant too much room for variation from an interviewer’s script); and,
4) does not insert personal opinion into the interview (e.g., by agreeing or disagreeing
with a response) (Croucher & Cronn-Mills, 2014).
Often, self-administered questionnaires (self-reports where people write down their
answers) are a type of structured interview (Kvale, 1996). Other typical types of
structured interviews include telephone interviews where the interviewer fills in the
participants’ responses and Internet-based interviews with closed-ended options (a
popular one is SurveyMonkey). The benefits of structured interviews are: 1) the
individuals conducting these kinds of interviews only need to be trained to follow basic
data collection instructions; 2) less of a relationship is generally developed between
the interviewer and participants; and 3) data collected are considered by many who

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conduct this type of research to be more reliable (Patton, 1990; Warren & Karner,
2005).

6.2 Data collection and sampling

Because of the ability to reach interviewees residing in different regions in Italy and
of Europe, data has been collected by means of a structured interview instead of a
semi-structured or an unstructured interview. The online questionnaire was designed
on Microsoft Office and was distributed via e-mail.
The names of the retailers were provided by those participants who filled in the survey
question “Ha acquistato più frequentemente su Internet o in negozi fisici? Specifichi
il nome del sito o del negozio fisico. Do you purchase (these products) more frequently
on the Internet or in physical stores? Please specify the name of the website or of the
store”. In fact, the researcher’s goal was to collect tangible proof of some popular
retailers – since there’s no proof about all of them – among Italian consumers.
The retailers the researcher got in touch with to ask for an interview are nine. Six of
them are based in Italy: My Beauty Routine (www.mybeautyroutine.it), based in
Pesaro (PU); Miloon (www.miloon.eu), based in Milan; Maison
Loo (www.maisonloo.com), based in Castenedolo (BS); BellaMi (bellamishop.com),
based in Rome; The K Beauty (www.thekbeauty.com), based in Rome;
Baqueen (www.baqueen.it), based in Cesano Maderno (MB). Three of them are based
in Europe but they offer a shipping service to European countries such as Italy and
also have an Italian-language version of their website: Pink Panda (www.pinkpanda.it),
based in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Miin Cosmetics (miin-cosmetics.it), based in Barcelona,
Spain; Ecco-Verde (www.ecco-verde.it), based in Graz, Austria.
While the retailers of the former category are all specialized in Korean beauty products,
in two out of three retailers of the latter category, more kinds of cosmetic products are
included. In fact, Pink Panda sells a range of both low-end (such as N.Y.X.) and high-
end (such as Anastasia Beverly Hills) European, American and Asian cosmetics, while
Ecco-Verde specializes in organic cosmetics brands, including the Korean brand
Whamisa.
The interest in interviewing cosmetics retailers was driven by the interest in
discovering, just as with the survey in the previous chapter, how much known K-

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beauty is in Italy and how this knowledge is spread. In particular, the researcher was
mainly interested in how these retailers actively contribute to the spread of this
knowledge through the use of social media pages. Talking about the use of social
media, the interviewees have been asked both about their approach to customer service
through social media pages and how their customers prefer to get in touch with them
when it comes to customer service.

6.3 Data analysis

The data was collected in the time frame of one month and ten days, starting from
March 22nd 2019 – the day in which all the retailers have been contacted by the
researcher – and ending on May 1st 2019, when a relevant number of responses to the
interview has been reached. Data was collected only electronically. The survey was
completed by 5 retailers out of 9.

6.4 Sample characteristics

The Italian retailers who agreed to be interviewed were: My Beauty Routine; The K
Beauty; MaisonLoo; Baqueen. On the other hand, only the European retailer Pink
Panda agreed to reply to the researcher’s question.

6.5 Identification of key research questions

The main purpose of my empirical study was to understand the approach to social
costumer service by both retailers of niche products in Italy and their customers, with
particular focus on K-beauty retailers. Another purpose is to investigate whether social
media is an appropriate tool to build relationships with customers and whether it
actually drives customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Not much research was
found in this direction.
The purpose of the interview was to answer the following questions:
• How popular were Korean cosmetics in Italy when online retailers of these
products started popping up?
• How important is spreading the word through social media pages?
• Does social costumer service work for these retailers?

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6.6 Results
The answers reported by the interviewees mostly share common points; however, a
few differences have been spotted while analyzing said answers. Each question will
be quoted and the answers to them will be paraphrased for easier reading.

• Descriva (nome). Da quanto tempo è in attività? Quante persone lavorano per

l’azienda? Dov’è la sede? Cosa l’ha portata a fondare (nome)? / Describe (name).
How long have you been in business? How many people work for the company?
Where is your headquarters? What led you to found (name)?
My Beauty Routine: We opened our website on March 8th, 2017 after working on it
for one year and a half. I like to try new things and, after being disappointed by organic
beauty, I started digging deeper into Korean cosmetics. With the help of my partner
Martino, shareholder of Ebrand (one of the biggest cosmetic distribution websites in
Italy), I had the chance to start this project, working on the communication strategy
and the design.
The K Beauty: The K Beauty debuted as a blog on February 2017 and as an e-
commerce and temporary store on June 2017 – the first physical store entirely
dedicated to Korean cosmetics in Italy. The staff consists of 2 people and 6 to 8
external professionals. The headquarters is in Rome.
MaisonLoo: Maison Loo is an e-commerce specializing in the sale of Asian skin care
products, especially Korean. The website was published in February 2018.
At the beginning I managed everything on my own, as it was more of a hobby, starting
from the creation of the site until its publication, from the bureaucratic paperwork to
the marketing and the search of the products. We now are a team of 5 company
members and external professionals working together to develop Maison Loo.
Baqueen: The website has been online since June 2015. The company is based in
Cesano Maderno (MB) and is completely managed by me except for some
administrative/technical aspects for which I call upon expertise. The idea was born
about a year before the launch of the site when as a Korean cosmetics consumer I
decided to share my passion for Korean skincare. What drove me was the desire to
simplify the purchasing process for customers, because buying directly from Korea
involved and still involves several difficulties that not everyone is willing to face but

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especially the desire to share my experience and enthusiasm for innovative and
effective products at affordable prices. At first, as it was more of a hobby, the business
was run in parallel to my main occupation but has turned to be my full-time job for a
year now.
Pink Panda: is a Slovenian company, located in Ljubljana (the capital) and present in
several European markets. Its founders are Maja Švener and Gregor Koprivnik, who
opened their first website www.licila.si on April 1st, 2010. We received a good
feedback from Slovenian customers, so we decided to expand our business outside our
country as Pink Panda. After Slovenia, we opened our online shops in Croatia,
Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and France.
We also offer a shipping service to Austria. We opened the Italian website in 2015 and
to date the team has grown to more than 30 people (the whole company). There are
three female employees in charge of customer support for Italy.

• Quando ha aperto X, qual era il grado di popolarità della cosmesi coreana in

Italia? Nota delle differenze tra la popolarità che i prodotti cosmetici coreani
avevano quando avete aperto l’attività e la popolarità che hanno adesso? / How
popular were Korean cosmetics in Italy when you started (name)? Do you think
their popularity has changed since then?
My Beauty Routine: The popularity was almost non-existent. There were only two
websites, one closed soon after our opening and the other one was Sephora’s. In the
past two years [the popularity] has evolved a lot since our opening, customers love to
be informed and receive consultations and demand for information on the latest
products and trends is increasing.
The K Beauty: I have no data on the popularity in the past nor present, but I can tell
the situation is distinctly different now and still growing. Thanks to the dissemination
activities of The K Beauty, bloggers and journalists, more people are getting to know
Korean cosmetics more easily. However, Italy is far behind other European countries
in terms of awareness and desire to experiment.
MaisonLoo: Italy has always been the last to open up to new things: trends always
arrive after years if not decades and it takes longer for people to accept new
products. However, I think that in recent years something is finally starting to

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change. Asian skincare products, especially Korean ones, are commonly considered
the most innovative and efficient in the world, they are very famous in Asia and
America, so it won’t be long before they are accepted and loved here too.
Baqueen: When I opened Baqueen in 2015 Korean cosmetics was not very popular,
but there had already been the boom in the sales of BB creams, so it was not completely
unknown either. I was able to find out that several people had already known and using
them [Korean cosmetics] for a long time, buying them abroad. On the other hand,
many people were fascinated by them but at the same time were wary of the real
effectiveness and safety of the products. At present, I no longer feel that fear that was
there at the beginning. I think the difference was first made by Sephora who brought
Korean cosmetics to the general public and then, after seeing the products in perfumery
and read articles in newspapers and magazines, many consumers approached the
Korean skincare.
Pink Panda: I would say that Korean cosmetic products have become more popular in
the last year. There is a growth in demand, especially in the skin care sector, since their
[of Koreans] routine is in fact very precise and consists of a lot of steps.

• Quanto è stato importante per (nome) l’utilizzo dei social media? / How important
are social medias for (name)?
My Beauty Routine: Essential. Generally speaking, I believe that having active social
media is vital for anyone who runs an e-shop and therefore not a physical store with
store clerks and everything else that usually helps with promotion and services.
The K Beauty: In a world where many news passes from social networks, their use is
essential, not using them is equivalent to not being there.
MaisonLoo: A lot. Social medias for entities like ours correspond to the first
advertisements on TV, they are an essential marketing tool for companies that want to
be up to date.
Baqueen: The use of social media has been important but not fundamental. I’d say that
I have used them more indirectly, such as through collaborations or mentions from
consumers, than directly by publishing original content.
Pink Panda: For us, social media play a very important role, both in the marketing
sector and as a tool to communicate with our customers.

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• In che modo e per cosa preferisce usare i social media per la sua azienda? Crede
che siano un semplice mezzo per attirare l’attenzione e farsi conoscere, un modo
per poter instaurare un rapporto con i follower o qualcos’altro? / How do you
prefer social medias to be used for your company and for which purpose? Do you
consider them a means to get noticed, a tool through which establishing a
relationship with your followers or else?
My Beauty Routine: they can be attention-drawing as long as you provide interesting
information, but in my opinion the main peculiarity of social medias is that a personal
connection can be established. It may sound absurd, but I think that because there is a
“filter” (barrier), people feel free to open up even on topics that are not properly related
to cosmetics (however, this filter is often passed, since photos and even voice messages
can be sent).
The K Beauty: Both. However, for a young business like The K Beauty the most
relevant aspect is to get noticed.
MaisonLoo: Each company has its own philosophy, ours is to convey passion for skin
care. Our goal is not only to sell and make profit; through social media we try to
improve the attitude towards skincare. The western habit is based on the remedy while
the eastern one on prevention, and it is a substantial difference. Old age obviously
comes for everyone, but the age of the skin can be slowed.
Baqueen: I mainly use social networks as a showcase in which to show products and
as a means to be found and known. It is more difficult for a brand to succeed in
establishing a relationship with followers and create a community, as it takes time and
resources that I haven’t yet spent.
Pink Panda: It is certainly a great way to increase sales, but only with the help of a
team of marketing experts. In addition, I find it a great way to introduce new products
as well as to communicate with our beloved customers and followers.

• Nota una differenza tra come l’audience (intesa sia come clienti che come follower)
interagisce con i suoi profili social e come interagisce con il suo sito? / Have you
noticed a difference between how your audience (both customers and followers)
interacts with your social media profiles and how it interacts with your website?

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My Beauty Routine: In most cases the people who contact me and look for a more
humanized contact are very kind customers; some, however, see me only as an online
shop and can be really rude, even in a first approach on social media. In any case, after
trying to solve a problem rather than arguing, it all works out for the better and social
networks are a good means for that purpose, because they are very direct but you have
to know how to handle them well because you can easily be misunderstood.
The K Beauty: Yes, the interaction is different: on the website users complete their
purchase and do not interact except for the service of “Ask me advice”, which is
instead widely used. On social networks they only ask a few questions and show some
appreciation.
MaisonLoo: the interactions through social platforms are much more informal, both in
style and content. In addition, feedback is much more immediate and quicker on social
media: you just need to “like” a picture, leave a quick comment or an emoticon and
that’s faster than filling out the form on a website.
Baqueen: I do not notice differences, also because the audiences of the website and of
the social networks are very similar.
Pink Panda: No, I do not think there is a big difference. Pink Panda is a friendly website
that always tries to establish a pleasant conversation, both via e-mail and social media.
The conversations we have therefore are not the classic customer – company ones, but
more like a conversation with a friend.

• Crede che il fatto di avere dei profili social aziendali renda più facile gestire tutto
ciò che è relativo al servizio clienti (ricezione di richieste da parte dei clienti e
risposta ad esse, immediatezza…)? / Do you believe that having business profiles
on social medias makes it easier to manage everything related to customer service
(receiving requests from customers and responding to them, immediacy…)?
My Beauty Routine: As already mentioned, you need to learn how to handle them.
Also, it’s a stressful because customers expect retailers to answer them at all hours and
even on holidays, they don’t understand that we have a real life.
The K Beauty: No, it’s not simple, but we have to [manage business social media
profiles]. Also, unfortunately, it represents a cost. It is not easy [to manage business
social media profiles] because there are so many company channels and it is difficult

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to check them all at all times. Customers can contact us through direct messages on
the 3 social networks that we use or post a comment on all our 3 social media pages
and send an e-mail to our corporate e-mail address. It is often difficult to understand
what they are referring to and there is a great job information-gathering. Social
networks have accustomed customers and us all to constant contact: at every hour of
the day and night, 24/7, and there is often no perception that there are people working
with normal office hours behind them. It often happens that a not immediate response
leads the customer to get frustrated.
MaisonLoo: We consider social networks as tools for advertising and interaction; as
for communication purposes, we prefer using them as tools for a “company to possible
customers” strategy. Most online shops provide all the information the customer
needs. People who are really interested in purchasing visit our website, browse it and
complete their order without asking questions via social networks.
For the various requests and information regarding the status of the order or advice on
the use of the products, the e-mail is still the most formal and preferred means of
communication by customers.
Baqueen: Yes, both social media and the use of a popular messaging apps such as
Whatsapp have made the conversation [between customer and retailer] much more
immediate. Moreover, the speed and effectiveness of the response often determine the
customer’s purchase and are a means to generate trust.
Pink Panda: Yes, of course, for us being accessible to customers is very important and
makes the whole purchasing process easier.

• Per quanto riguarda i suoi clienti, preferiscono contattarla sui profili social, via
telefono o via e-mail? / As for your customers, do they prefer to contact you on
social media profiles, by phone or e-mail?
My Beauty Routine: Social networks and e-mail, also because we send customers
personalized beauty routines with a system designed by Martino that requires the
registration to the site and the answer is by e-mail. Counselling is also more detailed
by e-mail. Social networks are more for frequent questions although lately using
Instagram got easier for me, even for contacts with bloggers, thanks to voice messages.

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The K Beauty: If they contact us for a purely informative reason, they prefer social
medias. If it comes to orders-related inquiries then they prefer using e-mails, as they
are considered more of an “institutional” channel.
MaisonLoo: X
Baqueen: The main means of communication is the e-mail, through which I receive
most of the inquires. I could say that depending on the type of information customers
want, different channels are used. Through e-mail I receive more requests for beauty
routines and product advice, while customers prefer Whatsapp or Facebook chat to
request assistance during the order, perhaps for something related to delivery or
payment. I also noticed that regulars often switch from email to conversation via
Whatsapp for any type of inquiry.
Pink Panda: We offer the possibility to contact us via email and social (Facebook and
Instagram). The number of messages received via e-mail and social media is equal.

• Come sceglie quali prodotti importare in Italia? / How do you choose which
products to import to Italy?
My Beauty Routine: First of all, they must be certified. Check that their INCI
[ingredients list] include mainly functional ingredients as the main ones in a certain
product and effective formulations.
The K Beauty: Selecting the “cleanest” and most organic products and testing their
performance first.
MaisonLoo: We chose to include many quality products, natural but efficient. We are
not interested in a strategy that focuses on sales volume, but it should focus on quality,
aiming mainly at customer loyalty. Maison Loo wants to be synonymous with
“Wellness” and not with “convenience”.
Also, since these are Asian products, the packaging must have a touch of liveliness
and must not miss innovative and fun articles.
Baqueen: I choose among the products available for the European market. After
identifying an interesting product, I look for any kind of information available. I read
the manufacturer’s claims, reviews of who has already tried it and watch videos.
Sometimes I test the product on myself before selling it.

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Pink Panda: we offer quality, cruelty free and affordable products. We have a team of
experts who deal exclusively with the addition of new brands to our site.

• Quali prodotti sono più popolari tra la sua audience, sia secondo le vendite sul
sito che secondo le semplici interazioni dei suoi follower con i post sui suoi profili
social? / According to both the sales on your website and to interactions of your
followers with the posts on your social media profiles, which products are the most
popular among your audience?
My Beauty Routine: Brands – such as Missha, Benton, Whamisa but also Mizon which
has a great value for money and that literally fly off the shelves – are more famous
than products. However, sheet masks are definitely the product that catches the eye the
most on social networks.
The K Beauty: On a purchase level, the most popular products are the cleansing ones
because the Korean ritual of double cleansing has been well received. For what
concerns social medias, our followers like new products and original content – on
Instagram, a photo gets more likes because is beautiful, regardless of the pictured
product. Also, social networks sell very little- Instagram almost for nothing- because
so far, they only have an informative function.
MaisonLoo: To date, face masks (there are really of all kinds) are definitely the most
popular product, but toners and serums are also much appreciated.
Baqueen: Sheet masks are definitely the most popular product. I hardly receive orders
that do not include at least one mask. On the other hand, on social media beauty
routines and the combinations of various products are the most appreciated [by
customers].
Pink Panda: Among the most popular products, they ones that stand out are made by
the best known and famous brands. Generally, it depends also from the trends of the
moment.

• Sa come i suoi follower e clienti vengano a conoscenza dei cosmetici coreani e/o
rimangano aggiornati sugli ultimi trend beauty coreani, se più online e/o via social
media o se ci sono influenze di altro genere (musica, film, pubblicità…)? O
entrambi? / Do you know how your followers and customers get to know about

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 Korean cosmetics and/or stay up to date on the latest Korean beauty trends,
whether more online and/or via social media or if there are other influences (music,
movies, advertisements…)? Or both of them?
My Beauty Routine: from what I’ve heard from my customers, they read up online, on
social medias and by watching videos on Youtube (like I did).
The K Beauty: Talking about Korean cosmetics, the influence of K-Pop was especially
relevant among our youngest customers, K-dramas also contributed but to a lesser
extent. The difference between the online dimension – blogs, Youtube, news – and
social medias is very thin. Word of mouth through social medias is the strongest means.
MaisonLoo: on Instagram they can keep up with what’s trending in the rest of the
world, such as Korean dramas but mostly K-pop.
Baqueen: Some [customers] follow the official Instagram accounts of the most famous
Korean brands and of beauty bloggers who test and review various products, read
foreign blogs and consult the websites of Korean retailers. K-pop singers/bands and k-
dramas can certainly influence but they are followed mainly by the youngest customers
who make up a small part of my followers.
Pink Panda: Definitely social medias, bloggers, vloggers and youtubers.

6.7 Considerations on the results

6.7.1 Actual popularity of Korean products among Italian customers and why
A few similarities can be noticed by reading through the answers given by the CEOs
of these companies. First of all, they all opened up to the Italian market over the last
four years (2015-2018), when the Hallyu 2.0 had already become widespread.
Interestingly, they either started their activity as a blog or, more in general, as a hobby
from the founder’s behalf – which also included writing about cosmetics on an online
platform that will have turned into an e-commerce only later. Moreover, all these
retailers decided to keep their blog after turning their hobbies and interests into their
job. This choice could be justified by the fact that due to the ever-increasing number
of retailers going online, competition for customers is incredibly hard and brand
loyalty is nearly extinct. Companies like the ones represented by interviewees of this
research, which are dependent on the success of their online shopping sites – as they
are completely internet based and have no physical outlets – subsequently need a web-

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based tool to reach their target customers. Blogs are an easy way of reaching customers
from new areas, and it is a way of doing marketing which is very cost efficient
(Penttala and Saarela, 2012). As in the case of Soko Glam and The Klog, the contents
posted on their blogs are completely managed by the CEOs of the companies and deal
with products sold on their websites. However, they use the same platform for both
informative and selling purposes and their content doesn’t deal with private labels –
as none of these retailers produce any. On the contrary, their content is more related to
cosmetic trends and reviews on the latest products that the CEOs themselves tested
before deciding to sell them – as stated by the interviewees themselves. This could
lead the customer to trust these retailers, considering their content as unbiased and
trustworthy.
Other categories of content and services aimed to the education of customers and
prospects are ancillary services. These represent all those methods used by companies
to enrich and differentiate their own offers. These services, although not part of the
company’s core business, represent elements that are more and more critical for
developing the virtual company’s set of trusted resources. These are services like
technical assistance, payment delays or forms of financing, opportunities for
entertainment, and so on. The company can then focus not only on the functional side
of the purchase, but on the emotional one as well. The virtual point of sale – like the
physical one – can be understood as a ‘sales location’ but also a ‘permanent location
for aggregation and entertainment’ for the consumer, as well as a source of value
creation for the shopper and elements of differentiation from the competition.
Undoubtedly, when operating in a virtual environment there are more possibilities to
create diversification policies through service offers that are not strictly ‘commercial’
in nature, and by satisfying groups of needs that are increasingly broad, thereby
exploiting economies of scale and relationships both on a ‘physical’ and on a
‘cognitive’ plane.
Distance selling mediated by electronic support has enormous potential in terms of
marketing, essentially because of the possibility of dynamism and personalization of
the offer. This allows for the promotion of qualitative matching between supply and
demand at the single-client level. One of the main distinguishing elements of the
internet, real-time bidirectional communication at relatively low costs, opens

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extraordinary opportunities to learn from relationships; the improvement of mutual
knowledge between a client and company, but also among companies that operate
within the supply chain, allows for interaction to be pushed so as to co-design a
package of specific product services for the needs of those involved in the business
relationship.
Personalization can be implemented at various levels, with a degree of complexity and
an increasing scope of impact on the supply chain; this may concern primarily the
virtual store’s offering (product mix, search patterns, promotions and pricing) but,
secondarily, the product itself. Personalization relative to commercial services requires
marketing information systems integration that connects the virtual sales point to the
company’s other information systems (administrative, commercial, etc.). For product
personalization, the information system needs to be integrated with all the other
operators of the supply chain and the operation methods used by the companies to
connect to each other must change radically. (Castaldo, Grosso and Premazzi, 2013).
We have an example of personalization on the My Beauty Routine website. The
retailer provides a self-designed service called “Beauty Routine Personalizzata”
(Personalized beauty routine). First of all, whoever willing to try this free consultation
has to create an account in order to receive the results on their personal e-mail address.
In the store’s data-base are stored 102 beauty routines, with all combinations possible.
Customers are provided five filters: skin type, skin concerns, age range, gender, max
price range willing to spend. That way, the customer has a high chance to find a
suitable routine. Every routine consists of ten steps – make-up removal, cleansing,
exfoliation, toner, essence, serum, sheet mask, eye contour cream, moisturizer and
sunscreen, which are explained in detail.
When they were asked an opinion on an eventual change in the popularity of Korean
cosmetics from the year, they started selling Korean cosmetics to the Italian public,
retailers all agreed that there was an increase in said popularity. However, they
motivated their answer differently: two out of four Italy-based retailers linked this
popularity to the accessibility of these products on the shelves in Sephora’s stores,
while the remaining two claimed that even though something has changed for the
better, Italy is still not as up to date as other European and American countries. This
could be caused but the Country Of Origin (COO) Effect, that is to say, the impact

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which the provenience of a good has on consumers’ perceptions and decision making.
It is a psychological effect defined as “the positive or negative influence that a
product’s country of origin may have on consumers’ decision processes or subsequent
behavior” (Samie, 1987, in Sui, 2014, p. 6). It is usually conveyed to the customer
with the phrase “Made in” (Amine, Chao & Arnold, 2004). Consumers, as human
beings, hold perceptions and opinions about foreign countries. Bad past experiences,
exposure and general inclination towards a country too influence consumers’
perception of that country (Abraham & Patro, 2013). Josiassen, Assaf & Karpen (2011)
developed a model of two different origins for country perceptions: the summary effect,
taking place when one has past experiences with other products from the same country;
the halo effect, which refers to a general impression a consumer has about a country.
So, for instance, one might have tried a Chinese product, which fell apart after two
days (summary effect) or one might see South Africa as a poor country with no ability
to innovate (halo effect).
There has been considerable debate among scholars regarding the validity of country
of origin effect nowadays. Although the majority still insists on the importance of
country of origin effect on consumer decision-making, others believe it might not be
such an important attribute in consumers’ purchase decisions. Also, many have argued
about whether to consider the country of manufacturing, or the country of the brand as
the COO. Hui & Zhou (2003) found that when the country of manufacturing is
different and has a lower perceived image than the country of origin of the brand (for
example, Nike shoes produced in Indonesia), then this negatively influences
consumers’ quality perception of the brand. Srinivasan, Jain & Sikand (2004) instead
found that the country of the brand is more important for consumers than the country
of manufacturing, thus it is beneficial for a company to choose a positive image
country for the brand, while shifting production to a less developed country.
Magnusson, Westjohn & Zdravkovic (2011), further expand the reasons that lead
consumers to have a wrong understanding of the country of origin of a brand: one
reason lies in the association of price and quality, so people tend to associate low
quality products with developing countries and high-priced products with developed
countries, without actually checking the actual origin. Another reason lies in
companies’ attempt to hide their country of origin when this is unfavorable.

118
Magnusson et al. (2011) argue that what is important is not whether the consumer
knows the correct country of origin; even a wrong perception might create a
(positive/negative) country of origin effect. For example, even though one might
mistakenly assume Audi to be an Italian car, this does not prevent coo effects from
taking place: his opinion of the product will change based on his opinion of the country
he thinks the product is from, no matter if this information is correct or not. For
example, Zhou, Yang & Hui (2010) found that Chinese consumers who perceived a
local product as foreign attributed a better quality to it than consumers that perceived
the same product as local. This shows that the actual COO has little to do with COO
effect, “accurate country of origin knowledge is not a prerequisite for country of origin
to affect the brand perception” (Magnusson et al., 2011, p. 466).
A country might benefit from a positive COO effect for certain product categories and
be hindered by negative perceptions for others. In their research, Rezvani et al. (2012)
mention that the COO effect is the strongest when customers have no knowledge about
a product, or a specific brand. That’s when, by using their general knowledge and
quality perception of a country, they infer the quality of the product. Maheswaran
(1994) confirms this, finding that the greater the level of consumer expertise regarding
a certain product, the weaker the COO effect will be. This means that when a consumer
has a vast knowledge about a product, he is more likely to base his judgment on
product’s specifics and specific brand names more than on the country of origin
(Maheswaran, 1994). In the same study he also suggests that the level of information
available regarding a product will reduce the COO effect too. Schaefer (1997) also
found evidence that when a brand is unfamiliar, people do rely on the COO to make a
decision, but that it diminishes exponentially when the brand is known and even more
when the consumer has a direct experience with it. Chu et al. (2010) too conclude that
the COO does not have an important impact on already well-established brands.
Zdravkovic (2013) added involvement as a moderator of the COO effect. Thus, while
country of origin is shown to have more influence on decision making in low
involvement products, it doesn’t hold much power in high involvement decision
making, where product attributes and specific hold a much bigger importance (Cok,
2015). It is for this reason that blogging is an advantage for both bloggers – in this
case, retailers – and the company, but also for the reader (Penttala and Saarela, 2012).

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6.7.2 Social media and social customer service – a retailer’s perspective
When discussing about social customer service, several aspects of the service from a
retailer-point of view have been found out. First of all, all retailers agreed that social
media are an essential means of communication for online retailers like them; some of
them even pointed out that they consider social media as means for marketing. The
only retailer that stated that they use social media more “indirectly”, also stated that
they depend more on customer reviews and collaborations. However, when retailers
were asked their specific reason(s) for creating a business profile on social media,
different reasons and priorities were expressed: self-promotion, customer relationships
and education towards the provided service and products through a one-way
symmetrical model of communication (company to stakeholders).
For the former, brands focus on social media branding, which is about consistently
using the right methods to engage with the target audience on social media platforms.
The aim or purpose is to boost brand awareness. Branding is an important stage for
any business that wants to generate long-term business. It’s about defining what the
company stands for and at the same time attract prospects that are likely to turn into
customers. In the initial branding stages, every business lead is important, which is
why it’s necessary to start the relationship on the right note. Social media branding
makes it easy for brands to get more relevant people into your sales funnel by giving
them a reason to trust them – which means better business and stronger customer
relationships (Standberry, 2017).
As for the latter, said strategy is known as informational strategy, whose aim is simply
to make information available to stakeholders. However, the relationship between the
organization and stakeholders is still ‘symmetrical’. This means that communication
practitioners aim to report objectively information about the organization to relevant
stakeholders (Cornelissen, 2014).
Talking about the interviewees’ customers, not all of them stated that the latter have a
different approach depending on the means and the need. Some retailers stressed that
their customer’s approach to their business social profiles are more immediate and
feedback-like, while they approach their website like any other e-commerce. This
question was linked to the next one, in which they were asked an opinion on possible

120
advantages and disadvantages of providing social customer service as retailers.
According to them, the main advantage is the possibility to build customer loyalty and
assist the customer at any purchasing step. The main disadvantage, on the other hand,
is time and information management: customers are sometimes perceived by
companies as too demanding and as they are de-humanizing the retailer’s job; as they
don’t perceive social profiles as professional and formal as e-mails are, they expect to
be helped even out of office hours – preferably within one hour (Morini, 2017) – and
without providing much information such as order or product numbers – which are
usually mandatory to fill in on online forms provided on the retailer’s website. Not
helping a customer in time or not helping him at all can trigger a vicious circle of bad
reputation destined to become viral. Customers who lose interest in a brand that
doesn’t answer questions asked on social media seems to be almost 90%; on the other
hand, customers who have received replies to tweets or comments on Facebook are
more satisfied with their experience and more willing to recommend a brand. The
faster the response, the more willing the customer is to spend (Morini, 2017).
However, all retailers stated that e-mails are still preferred over social customer service
by their customers, as it is still perceived as a more trustworthy and institutional means
of asking for assistance – while social customer service remain limited mostly to pre-
purchase information such as product availability and shipping options and fees.

7. Experienced difficulties
The difficulties encountered throughout the completion of this master thesis can be
summed up as follows:
• Lack of previous research on the popularity of Korean cosmetics and Korean
cultural products in Italy;
• Lack of previous research on social customer service provided to Italian customers;
• Lack of previous research on official Italy-based Korean cosmetic products;
• Lack of content on Korean cosmetics in Italian nor English – most of the content
provided on chapter 2.2.4 has indeed been translated by the researcher from
Korean into English;
• Lack of understanding of all questions by a few participants to the questionnaire.

121
8. Conclusion
The objective of this research was to understand the possible relation between Italian
consumers’ interest in Korean cosmetic products and the increasing popularity of
Korean cultural products in the Western world and to explore the current social
customer service activity of Korean cosmetic products retailers in Italy. Both have
been proved to be very likely and very well-conducted, as both Italian customers and
retailers are willing to get to know the benefits of Korean cosmetic products.
In this study we found interesting and generalizable insight not only for the brands that
could be found in Italian physical stores, but also for Korean cosmetics in general.
First of all, the general opinion towards South Korea and its products was found to be
positive, so that a negative COO effect is quite unlikely. On the contrary, a high desire
to get to know more about Korean cosmetics and see them advertised and promoted
by specialists such as aestheticians and beauty shop assistants, as well as by
YouTubers and bloggers, was found.
The results obtained, both with the literature review and the primary research, show
promising possibilities for online retailers of Korean cosmetic products in Italy to build
a loyal audience on social media and customers who will keep taking them as main
reference for their future purchases as well as for keeping up with the future trends in
Korean cosmetics. What could be suggested in terms of future research could be a
more in-depth survey and/or interview on the advantages and disadvantages of social
customer service both on a customer’s perspective and especially a small retailer’s
perspective, as the latter has less resources to provide a social customer service as fast
and satisfying as one by a big retailer could. It is no coincidence, as far as the
researcher is concerned, that researchers are more prone to study social customer
service offered by big online retailers.

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Appendix n°1
Demographics Anno di nascita / Year of birth
Genere. Opzioni: maschio; femmina; preferisco non dire; altro
(specificare) / Gender. Options: male; female; I’d rather not say;
other (specify)
Dove vive? / Where do you live?
Cosa fa nella vita? Studente full time; studente lavoratore;
lavoratore full time; disoccupato / What’s your occupation? Full-
time student; Working student; Full-time worker; Unemployed
Interviewees’ Quali social media utilizza abitualmente? Facebook; Instagram;
usage of social Twitter; Snapchat; Pinterest.
media and Ogni quanto controlla il proprio profilo sui social media? Opzioni:
websites più o meno 10 volte al giorno; fino a 3 volte al giorno; una volta al
giorno; più volte a settimana; quasi mai.
Utilizza Youtube? Opzioni: sì, come utente; sì, come creator; sì,
come utente e creator; no.
Se sì, con che frequenza? Opzioni: tutti i giorni; più volte a
settimana; quasi mai
Che tipo di contenuti cerca sui social media e/o Youtube? Opzioni:
bellezza e moda; attualità; vlog; musica; sport; videogiochi; cucina;
DIY – fai da te; altro (specificare)
Testing Ha mai acquistato prodotti cosmetici? Sì; no
interviewees’ Che tipo di prodotti di cosmesi le interessano di più? Più opzioni
general possibili. Opzioni: cura della pelle; trucco; cura del corpo; cura dei
knowledge of capelli; altro (specificare).
K-beauty Che brand di le interessano di più?
Conosce i prodotti cosmetici “Made in Korea”?
10. Che tipo di prodotti di cosmesi coreana crede che sia più popolare
in Italia? Più opzioni possibili. Opzioni: cura della pelle; trucco;
cura del corpo; cura dei capelli; altro (specificare).
11. Quali brand di cosmesi coreana crede che siano più popolari in
Italia?

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 12. A seconda del suo grado di conoscenza dell’ambito, come è venuto
a conoscenza dei prodotti cosmetici “Made in Korea”? Opzioni:
Social media (specifichi quali); Youtube (specifichi su quali
canali); media tradizionali italiani (giornali, radio, tv…); industria
dello spettacolo coreana (K-pop, K-drama); altro (specificare)
13. In che formato? Opzioni: recensioni di blogger e youtuber;
pubblicità online (banner); pubblicità per strada; inserimenti a fini
pubblicitari in serie tv; altro (specificare)
14. Ha mai acquistato prodotti di cosmesi coreana?
15. Che tipo di prodotti di cosmesi coreana le interessano di più? Più
opzioni possibili. Opzioni: cura della pelle; trucco; cura del corpo;
cura dei capelli; altro (specificare).
16. Che brand di cosmesi coreana le interessano di più?
Korean 17. Ha mai notato cosmetici “Made in Korea” nei negozi e/o nelle
cosmetics sold farmacie italiani? Opzioni: no; sì (specificare dove)
in Italy 18. Ha mai notato cosmetici “Made in Korea” nei negozi online
italiani? no; sì (specificare nomi dei siti web)
19. Ha mai cercato di propria iniziativa cosmetici “Made in Korea” e
perché? Opzioni: sì, per saperne di più; sì, per acquistarli; sì, per
saperne di più e successivamente acquistarli; no.
20. Ha acquistato più frequentemente su Internet o in negozi fisici?
Specifichi il nome del sito o del negozio fisico.
21. Crede che negli ultimi anni la promozione di prodotti di cosmesi
coreana in Italia sia aumentata? Likert scale (da 1 a 5, da “sono
fortemente d’accordo” a “sono fortemente in disaccordo”).
22. In particolare, cosa ha notato? Opzioni: più pubblicità; più
disponibilità nei negozi fisici italiani; più disponibilità nei negozi
online italiani; più attività e/o eventi legati alla cosmesi coreana in
Italia; più recensioni/user generated content sui social media e/o
Youtube; altro (specificare)
23. Pensa che si potrebbe fare altro per promuovere i prodotti di
cosmesi coreana in Italia? Se sì, cosa?

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Interviewees’24. A cosa le fa pensare la Corea del Sud? Qual è la prima cosa che le
perception of viene in mente?
South Korea 25. Ha mai visitato la Corea del Sud?
26. Conosce la lingua coreana? Opzioni: no; no ma riesco a
distinguerla da altre lingue asiatiche; sì, la capisco/la studio da
poco; sì, la parlo bene.
27. Con quali prodotti culturali in lingua coreana è entrato in contatto?
Opzioni: musica; cinema/serie tv; YouTube; studio; social media;
altro (specificare); nessuno.
28. Conosce personaggi pubblici di nazionalità coreana? Più opzioni
disponibili. Opzioni: cantanti/band (specificare chi); attori
(specificare chi); youtuber (specificare chi); altro (specificare); no.

125
Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Prof. Alessandro Gandini of the
Department of Social and Political Sciences at University of Milan. He consistently
allowed this paper to be my own work but steered me in the right the direction
whenever he thought I needed it, even though the topic was a bit unknown to him.

I would also like to thank everyone who dedicated a little of their personal time to the
completion of my questionnaire. Without their contribution, this thesis would have
never become reality. Moreover, I’d like to thank online beauty retailers My Beauty
Routine, The K Beauty, MaisonLoo, Baqueen and Pink Panda for answering in detail
to my questions and letting me dig deeper into such a still-unknown topic.

A special thanks to Ms. Alessandra del Pozzo from CosmetMin B.V. for her interest
in my thesis.

I am very grateful to my best friend Lea, who shared with me her knowledge on Korean
history and translated entire chapters on Korean cosmetics from Korean into English
for the sake of this thesis.

I would like to thank my parents who did everything they could to send me to Milan
to study.

Thank you to those friends, collogues, professors and tutors I haven’t mentioned who
have been friendly and supportive throughout the whole duration of this academic
journey.

Last but not least, I would like to thank myself for being so passionate about this topic
so as to create something useful and interesting to read.

126
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