From the confusing new slogan I. Seoul. U to the viral sensation of Gangnam Style – an inside joke about the city’s success that was lost on most foreign viewers – Seoul is a city struggling to define its brand. But why?
I n November 2015, a much-publicised process of crowdsourcing ideas and putting them to a vote culminated in the city of Seoul unveiling its current English-language slogan: “I. Seoul. U.” It met with more ridicule from the local English-speaking community than most of the South Korean capital’s international PR moves (including, but hardly limited to, photoshopped versions for the long-suffering village of Fucking, Austria) .
“The arrogance, the vitriol and the self-appointed expertise evident in this explosion of online bile is extraordinary, ” wrote Korea Times columnist Andrew Salmon as he surveyed the announcement’s aftermath. He argued that “the stark simplicity of I. Seoul. U may well speak to tourists hailing from these high-potential target markets” who have “on the whole, a poor command of English”.
Furthermore, the unconventional, offbeat, and quirky strapline, as he described it, puts it alongside the Nike “swoosh” and legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser’s “I ❤ NY” – both “classic exercises in branding” exerting abstract emotional appeal.
Indeed, I. Seoul. U was seen as a step forward in Seoul’s branding. Whatever its innate strengths or weaknesses, the slogan has brought more attention to a city that has long suffered image problems. For most of the 65 years since its emergence from the destruction of the Korean War, both Seoul and South Korea in general have struggled to define themselves on the cultural world stage, despite going on to become one of the most impressive economic success stories in human history.
The most relevant comparison in success is to the country’s neighbour and former coloniser Japan. In a period of about 30 years Japan “moved out of its negative image to become one of the most admired countries in the world”, in the words of place-branding consultant Simon Anholt.
“Korea’s image is improving, because Korea is improving, ” he said more recently . “It’s getting richer and more confident, ” yet its officials continue to self-defeatingly insist on “constantly publicising the fact they want a better image”.
Anholt believes “impatience, a lack of objectivity, boring strategies, faulty leadership, a naive faith in the power of propaganda, and a desire for quick fixes and short cuts”, are among the most common obstacles to proper nation branding; and for all the strengths of the country itself, South Korea still occasionally falls victim to these vices. Just last month it scrapped its English-language national brand “Creative Korea”, developed last year at a cost of $3m, amid accusations of a lack of creativity and, given France’s previous use of the brand “Creative France”, of plagiarism as well.
Japan may have a higher profile than South Korea, but not every branding scheme has been a work of genius. Around the same time as I. Seoul. U, the Japanese capital rolled out its own awkward quasi-English slogan “& Tokyo”. Yet whereas the nation of Japan and the city of Tokyo maintain two related but essentially independent public images, South Korea can’ t be discussed apart from Seoul quite so easily. Half of the entire country’s population lives in the 25 million-strong Seoul metropolitan area, and South Koreans from other regions have continued to regard Seoul as the only place affording real opportunity.
To a great extent, Seoul is Korea and Seoul’s image is Korea’s. The country and the capital have developed in tandem, and the inextricability of those two processes lies at the heart of Korean architecture professor Jieheerah Yun’s recent study Globalizing Seoul. Yun assesses the historically inward-looking city’s efforts to turn outward, presenting itself no longer as an “industrial ‘hard city’ emphasising speed and efficiency”, but as a “soft city”, one that values “the appreciation of invisible things, such as cultural and emotional wellbeing” – prioritising aesthetics as well as economics.
The idea, she writes, has been to move away from the “development dictatorship” that produced a monotonous, hastily constructed concrete-and-steel metropolis filled with lookalike office buildings and apartment towers (also plagued for a time with disasters, most tragically the 1995 collapse of the Sampoong department store) towards a more participatory process to remake Seoul as a “versatile ‘cultural’ city filled with tangible and intangible resources”.
In the past 15 years many urbanist-celebrated projects have popped up based on these rather abstract notions. There is Cheonggyecheon, a life-filled stream running through downtown Seoul where an elevated freeway once stood; the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) , an unearthly metallic museum and shop complex designed by the late Zaha Hadid placed in the centre of a busy market neighbourhood; and most recently Seoullo 7017, an overpass turned urban park that has been compared with Manhattan’s High Line since opening in May.
Yet this publicity also provided a chance for the media to once again highlight the sources of Seoul’s inferiority complex: “Built up quickly during the country’s astonishingly fast industrialisation, ” wrote the Washington Post’s Anna Fifield, the city has “often been derided with the saying, ‘There’s no soul in Seoul’ ”.
The official branding work meant to counteract that image goes back a decade when the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design selected Seoul as its “World Design Capital” for 2010.
