한국의 광고산업 발전사:

A Study on the Historical Evolution of Advertising Industry in Korea

Since the first TVCF broadcasted in 1956, half a century has passed during which the ad industry in Korea has grown enormously. Obviously, three key constituents of the ad industry are the advertisers, the advertising agencies, and media through which messages or contents are delivered to potential target audience. During 30 years, compared with 1974 and 2004, a total advertising expenditure has increased by over 155 times, while GDP has grown by 100 times. As such, Korea has become one of top 10 countries in terms of advertising expenditure in the world. This paper divides fifty years into four different phases in which characteristics of each phase are to be identified distinctively. And, then, the paper describes historically interrelated events and dynamics of three key constituents. The first phase (1956-1968) is termed as the advent of radio/TV advertisement. The second phase (1969-1980) is named as the experimental positioning era where a variety of novel approaches in the realm of design were implemented. The third phase (1981-1990) is termed as a controlled color marketing era in which overall the ad industry has grown considerably including color television broadcasting and sizable increase in the number of advertisers, while the governmental intervention in the media has been severer than ever. The current era is termed as the global multimedia phase (1991 and hereafter). In order to provide a general picture of advertising industry, yearly total ad expenditure since 1970 is analyzed to see if any patter is observed. Methodologically, this paper is a descriptive study which uses scissors and paste approach. Therefore, this paper is not free from being criticism against subjective demarcation of time period and selection of events for further discussion.