City Research Online

Abstract

South Korea (hereafter, Korea) is Asia’s fourth-largest economy, with a total advertising revenue of 13.99 trillion Korean won (approximately US$11.7 billion) in 2021, having increased by 20.4 per cent from 2020. Not only has there been a steady increase in advertising spending in recent years but also notable growth in terms of digital media in advertising. For example, the total advertising revenue in Korea was US$10 billion in 2018, up by 4.6 per cent from 2017, with US$4.6 billion spent on digital. As of 2021, digital advertising had the highest revenue at 7.5 trillion won (approximately $5.9 billion), followed by broadcast/TV/cable (4 trillion won), print/newspapers (1.7 trillion won), and out-of-home/traffic (0.8 trillion won). There are also over 3,000 agencies, including both foreign and domestic, in Korea. However, historically, there has been a distinct lack of research into advertising in Korea, especially among English-written publications. The history of Korean advertising has similarly attracted scant attention. This chapter therefore seeks to address both gaps by providing an overview of how the advertising industry developed in Korea from the nineteenth century through to the twenty-first century. It distinguishes seven periods based on political, economic, social, and technological changes affecting the history of advertising in Korea. By examining the major developments and driving factors behind such changes from the early 1880s to the 2020s, this chapter illustrates the degree to which Korea’s advertising history has been informed by a unique blend of local and broader international factors.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Companion to the History of Advertising on 18/08/2025, available online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003291947 It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History D History General and Old World > DS Asia H Social Sciences H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity School of Communication & Creativity > Department of Media, Culture & Creative Industries
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads