Background

South and North Korea have been divided for the past 70 years since the end of the Korean War. During the times of division, there has been no cultural exchange between the two countries, and the North Korean often has been described as a military threat on the media. The stories about desperate defectors or nuclear threats have been told in the news and the movies, but it is rare to hear about the cultural side of regular citizens of North Korea. Since the peaceful mood was set after the Inter-Korean Summits in 2018, the Ministry of Unification wanted to start a campaign that can reinforce this peaceful momentum. The brief was to create a fun and unique experience for Gen-Z of South Koreans to get curious about North Korea and start a fresh new dialogue outside of the political frame.

Describe the strategy

The objective was to create a fresh new conversation experience empowered by new technology that is relevant to our target audience, Gen-Z who are tech-savvy and fluent with the mobile platform. For this reason, we needed a solution that would be very accessible to the mobile device and satisfy the real-time interaction. So, we built a voice-activated A.I. persona that has machine-learned massive volumes of data about North Korea. We created three different virtual characters that represent the young generation of North Korea that tell us the stories about today’s North Korea: Pyongrin Kim, a 5th grader who can share the stories of children’s school/education in North Korea, Sowon Lee, a Pyongyang city tour guide who can talk about popular tourism spots and transportations in Pyongyang, and Hangil Lim, a student at the Kim-Chaek University of Technology, who talk about the college life and new technologies in North Korea.

Describe the execution

“A.I. North Korean” was introduced to the public as an interactive booth and a mobile app as a major touchpoint to experience. On November 26, 2019, an interactive booth that can generate a real-time conversation was installed in the center of Seoul City Hall where the <Gyeoremal-keunsajeon> exhibition was held, which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Inter-Korean language research project. So that, we made sure this project was first-hand exposed to the people who have a high interest in the culture and language of North and South. Also, we delivered the special mobile kit to the major Youtube influencers. By placing the NFC-enabled character figures on their smartphones, the app will be downloaded and activated to start a conversation. The Youtube influencers broadcasted their live reactions in real-time and share this curious experience to their online audiences. With the power of social media, the news had quickly spread online.

List the results

When the interactive booth was unveiled in the center of Seoul City Hall, the minister of Unification made a visit to the booth to demonstrate the real-time conversation, which got covered in major Korean news media. The most important number is the conversation time which had reached up to 10,802 minutes in the first month of its launch. The total number of questions generated by South Korean audiences reached up to more than 11,610. After the campaign, more than 82% of the participants responded that they developed a positive outlook on North Korea while 91% expressed their willingness to befriend a real North Korean one day.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

South and North Korea have been divided for the past 70 years since the end of the Korean War. Most South Koreans never get a chance to meet or speak to real North Korean in real life. Also, the story about North Korea always has been limited under a political frame. After the inter-Korean Summits in 2018, an unprecedented peaceful mood was set. The Ministry of Unification wanted to take this chance to start a campaign that can reinforce this peaceful momentum. So, It was necessary to create a fun and unique experience for South Koreans to get curious about the cultural side of North Korea so that young generations of North and South can start a fresh new dialogue outside of the political frame.