Gun Bae!

The world’s best-selling spirit Soju goes worldwide, but the celebrity-driven marketing behind its success may be unlawful.

On a night out in Seoul, excessively drunk people stagger around in the streets and scattered green bottles provide evidence of their heavy intake. Large billboards displaying light-dressed young girls showing off the ubiquitous Soju bottles make up the neon-lit city background.

“They have a very strict law about drinks but you see the advertisements everywhere you go,” says Jieun Lim at Soju Korean Kitchen in London, “Soju advertisements are very influential, I think people feel more drinking pressure because of them.”

Today’s Soju drinkers are not who they used to be. Earlier it was the ‘ajoshi’, middle-aged Korean men, who drank, while now about a third of consumers are women. Big Soju brands are also increasingly tailoring their advertisements to younger crowds, a previously untapped market.

“Soju used to be more common among men, when it was a bit stronger. Women didn’t like it. But the new advertisement is more targeted at young people and that’s why they use pretty girls in their advertisements,” says Jieun Lim.

“Actually I don’t like that they use these young girls in the commercials at all. There is usually one pretty and one uglier woman and they tell you that if you drink Soju, you can see the ugly one as a pretty one. You can get drunk very easily on this stuff, so they think it’s a good way of seeing your girlfriend more pretty. The whole thing is a bit ridiculous.”

It is no secret; Soju is currently the world’s best-selling hard liquor and has been for over a decade. With over twice as many cases sold per year than that of Smirnoff vodka and dwarfing other brands such as Jack Daniel’s twenty times over, Hite-Jinro Soju thrones the spirits market by a long shot – or many shots if you will.

And innumerable shots of Soju there surely have been, in South Korea that is. The unofficial national spirit accounts for a whopping 97 per cent of all alcoholic beverages finding its way down South Korean throats. With an average of 90 Soju bottles a head consumed per year, South Koreans can also boast the dubious title of world leading drinkers of hard liquor.

Paul Wadey, Public Relations Officer at the Korean Cultural Centre UK, attributes Soju’s domination of the spirits market to a mixture of “taste and tradition” and the fact that “high import taxes on wine and spirits also has an impact.”

“In Korea we only get import beer and wine that is very expensive and that’s why everyone drinks Soju,” says Jieun Lim.

Soju plays a major part in Korean professional life and it is not just accepted but in many cases also encouraged as a way of bonding between colleges after work. The drinking culture is so heavy that a morning hangover could almost be considered a professional hazard.

What South Koreans might call a Soju Tuesday, others call a workday. Not that they do not put in the work hours, in fact South Koreans work 44.6 hours a week while the OECD countries average is only at 32.8 hours.

“In Korea there is a culture of eating and drinking with your colleagues after work, partly for team building and partly because people work longer hours in Korea, so it makes sense to eat before you travel home. This is quite different to the UK that has a standing bar culture associated with alcohol. In the UK you would see bar snacks but less commonly see a full meal,” says Wadey.

Another thing that South Koreans do better than most is accessing the Internet. Over 84 per cent of South Koreans were online in 2012, and in knowing that young people increasingly acquire their information exclusively with the push of a button, the Internet presents obvious platforms for Soju-promoters to tailor their advertisements to.

“I find it funny how Korea has so many regulations regarding those Soju ads but that country’s population drink beer Soju like water,” one tweeted.

The big shift online provides South Korean authorities with a bit of a pickle. For while advertisements of alcohol is banned, “on TV, radio, internet TV and mobile TV between the hours of 7am-10pm,” according to Wadey, it is almost impossible to keep track of the information feeds that are shared, liked and tweeted continuously through social media.

One blogger writes: “Banned from advertising liquor on TV, Korean alcohol companies have turned to the internet to push the hard stuff and the government wants them to tone it down.”

“Since men are the main target consumers for Soju, the models endorsing the drink are inevitably young and beautiful women, although the occasional male star would make an appearance for the growing number of women who imbibe in the nation’s drink,” another blogger writes.

YouTube phenomenon Psy is the new poster boy for Chamisul, Hite-Jinro’s most popular variety of Soju. Upon Jinro’s launch of Chamisul Fresh into the American market, Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ viral-hit had already established a fan base ready to view his future video releases. So when a ‘PSY 13 Shot Soju Challenge’ YouTube video followed up by comments like “Soju is my best friend,” by the singer himself, it paved the way for large scale promoting events such as the outlet at LA Dodgers’ baseball stadium earlier this year.

Jieun Lim says: “The Soju advertisement that Psy is doing is kind of a new brand, this one is milder than the older one and young people like it. It used to be a higher percentage, but now almost all is 17 per cent.”

“Advertising of any alcohol that is over 17% by volume is banned,” says Wadey. Apparently the Soju companies have lowered the alcohol volume of their products in order to fit the terms set by the government.

Wadey gives some concluding advice on how to drink Soju according to the traditional etiquette: “You can pretend to drink when you are given a glass of Soju, but always accept the glass when offered and fill someone else’s glass when it’s empty.”