Interview "The Queen of Cannes, Kang Ji-hyun - CEO of Serviceplan Korea"

AP Newspaper interviewed Kang Ji-hyun, CEO of Serviceplan Korea, who dominated the world's top three advertising festivals, including Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, like David, who rushed to Goliath, who was several times bigger than himself, and knocked down a giant.

AP Newspaper: Serviceplan group to which Serviceplan Korea belongs is known as the largest and most diversified owner operation and partner operation group in Europe. Please describe Serviceplan  group.

Jihyun Kang: Serviceplan Group is a German general advertising agency based in Munich, Germany, founded by Dr. Peter Haller in 1970 and led by Florian Haller for generations. Under Serviceplan Group, we have a digital company, Plannet, a media company, Media Plus, and a solution company that challenges innovation technology to transform traditional advertising beyond ATL advertising to digital, retail and CRM solutions, and currently works with 4,000 colleagues at 30 overseas locations around the world.

In particular, Alexander Schill, a creative director and global chief creative officer (CCO), has been selected as one of the world's top three creative directors in Europe and Germany, and the group is an independent advertising company that does not miss the top creative rankings and sales in Germany.

AP Newspaper: What is the background of Serviceplan Korea?

Representative Kang Ji-hyun: Serviceplan opened in Korea in 2012. As a predecessor, Serviceplan group acquired and merged the German advertising company Liquid Campaign, which has been active in Asia since 2008, and it has grown in Korea by consulting and launching IKEA Korea's strategy to enter the Korean market in 2013.

AP Newspaper: Please introduce 'Dot' that made Serviceplan Korea known to the world and won many meaningful awards at the world's leading advertising festival

CEO Kang Ji-hyun: Dot is a Korean innovative startup company that launched Dot Watch, the world's first Braille watch for the blind, and the world's first media device for the blind, Dot Mini, with innovative technology called Active Braille with more than 20 patents worldwide.

AP Newspaper: How did you come across 'Dot'?

CEO Kang Ji-hyun: In January 2016, after participating in the first Google Tech Crunch in Korea, I was shocked to see innovative leading startups, and I felt a sense of crisis that the advertising company would come to an end because the product itself and the business model itself were destructive innovations. At that time, our company was also complacent in the traditional advertising area and comfort zone, and we thought we needed to change.

So I jumped in to experience a startup. I and PR manager, who searched for innovation startups and was attracted to Dot, asked for a meeting in March 2016 and visited Dot again a month later with Dot's brand strategy and positioning, future mid- to long-term communication strategies, roadmaps, and campaign ideas.

Dot was already famous at the time when it was introduced to foreign media such as BBC, Time magazine, Forbes, etc., but after seeing its strategy and ideas that penetrate the core of Dot's brand, Dot said he finally got the courage to go out of the world and praised Serviceplan  and Dot's blood mix, so let's grow together.

Since then, we have been in charge of marketing and campaigning for Dot, including meeting with world-renowned blind tenor Andrea Bocelli, interacting with MIT 5th Sense Lab at the Expo Milan, making keynote speeches by Dot CEO Kim Joo-yoon at the Herald Design Forum, and PPL for Telekom TV commercials across Europe. With such achievements in brand incubation of Startup Dot, he won Gold Lion in 2016 by submitting it to the Innovation, Digital, and Design categories of Cannes Lions, and more winning  the Innovation Awards in the other world's leading advertising festivals.

AP Newspaper: Serviceplan Korea has received numerous awards since many years ago. Please introduce your major award history.

CEO Kang Ji-hyun: 'Dot' won the Customer of the Year and Serviceplan Korea won the Agency of the Year, winning Gold Lion at Cannes Lions 2016, two Grand Prix and two Gold Lion at the Clio Health Advertising Festival in the same year. In 2016, won two Grand Prix, three Gold and one Silver Prize at Eurobest.

Two years later, in 2018, Dot steadily has been grown in sales and business, winning two more gold and one silver at Cannes Lions 2018 , winning five golds at the One Show 2019, one gold and five silver awards at the New York Festival 2019.

Serviceplan Korea is currently ranked No. 1 in Creative Ranking in Korea, No. 28 in the world in WARC Ranking 2019, and No. 5 in Innovation Agency on Creativity Report by Cannes Lions 2018.

I bravely challenged the team for things that I thought might be reckless, and as a result, I unintentionally became the Innovation Agency, which won the global advertising awards the most in Korea, and personally became the most awarded winner from the global advertising awards.

Currently, Serviceplan Korea is an investment and ownership shareholder of Dot Corporation, and is growing with Dot as an innovative business model that oversees digital sales and marketing in China and the United States, and preserves agency profits with revenue sharing.
AP: It's won a lot of awards. What's the most memorable award?

CEO Kang Ji-hyun: I remember Cannes Lions 2016 , which was won for the first time in Serviceplan Korea. No one at the time thought it would be possible to win the gold Lion at the prestigious advertising festival, but Dot campaign, which was submitted under the encouragement of CCO Alex Shill at the HQ, won two golds in Cannes LIons that year.
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