Alex Jenson  00:08

You’re listening to Korea biz cast with the KBLA. I’m your host, Alex Jensen, and it’s a new month, Friday, April 1, I could probably say I’m here with some sort of royalty and put it down to April Fool’s. But I haven’t thought enough about it. So I’ll just go straight into this interview with someone I know very well, Michael Breen, CEO of insight Communications Consultants, and full disclosure, I do quite a lot of work with Insight, which you can talk about in a second. But I particularly want to talk to Michael Michael today about his work in PR over the years and some of the exciting stuff he’s been doing recently, that I’ve learned a lot from, and I think a lot of us could learn a lot from if you’re looking to gain media exposure in this country, maybe you’ve got a company abroad, that you’re looking to expand their base here in Korea. I know a lot of people do it the other way around as well. And we can come to that on another day. Mike, thank you very much for taking this time.

Michael Breen  01:03

Well, thank you, Alex, nice to talk to you.

Alex Jenson  01:06

One of the most immediate things to mention, I think, is that Insight has gone through a bit of a facelift recently, over the years that I’ve known you and known Insight, there was a particular logo, and it was a logo that you would see came to the office, but you wouldn’t necessarily see it in a lot of other places, maybe just on a business card. But now, I see on LinkedIn, this new logo and feels like a rebranding in 2022.

Michael Breen  01:32

Yeah, we are having a bit of a rebranding, I think we’ve sort of picked up a little bit on PR PR, at least in experiencing Korea is passive, the marketing is passive in the sense that you don’t go out and look for clients. So with crises even you don’t chase ambulances in so to speak, you tend to wait for it to come to you. So, for that reason, perhaps we’ve been a bit slow, I think a lot of companies a little bit slow to sort of catch on to things. So where we’re making up for lost time, new logo, and new ways of sort of reaching out to people.

Alex Jenson  02:19

Before we continue with this new plan of yours to better engage or more fully engaged with the outside world to say, let’s take a little step through your own journey, because we spoke to you before on the podcast, drawing on your expertise. When we were looking at the presidential election as a preview, because you’ve been in Korea so long you’ve been here as a journalist, you’ve seen the changes, you’ve written books like The Koreans and then the new Koreans, then you’ve got this PR company inside communications consultants. As someone who wears a few hats myself, I can understand that. But people might be wondering which Michael Breen, should I turn to for advice, for instance, is it the Michael Breen who’s the writer or the journalists? Or what should I be seeking is PR advice? So I guess it depends what they’re seeking from you. But can you just talk us through that career path that you’ve laid so far?

Michael Breen  03:12

Yeah, well, I started my professional life as a journalist. Well, actually, to be frank with you, I started my professional life as a as a laborer and an oil rig worker, but then I went on to journalism in Korea, you know, as a correspondent here, and then I switched over into consulting, because of a fascination with North Korea. So consulting about North Korea, and a lot of that was very similar to journalism, except the audience was different. It was a business audience, and often a confidential audience as opposed to journalism, where you’re writing. So generally, and everybody can see what you’re saying. And then I went from that into public relations. So the the thing that’s been consistent for me is a sort of consulting or advisory role. Our type of public relations allows us to do that. I mean, you you normally expect that when you when you join a new company, you know, if you a lawyer, you join a law firm or your PR person, you join a PR firm, that your professional life is essentially dedicated to that. But I never wanted to let go of my journalistic roots. And so I found a way to keep both up. And you have to be careful because, you know, the irony is that PR and journalism are often at odds with one another and where these two professions meet in the middle as a kind of attention. So to be credible as a writer, and as a PR advisor isn’t always Easy. But I like to think that I’ve managed it. And so I’m quite comfortable. And people are a lot more familiar with that these days, because because of the crisis in media, so many journalists now, transition into PR, so there isn’t that animosity towards or mistrust of the industry in the way that they used to be.

Alex Jenson  05:24

And you’re talking to one right here, someone who I remember, I used to see you when I was going to work at Yonhap News Agency where I still do work now making videos for the Korea now and North Korea now at the channels there. And I used to see in Terarosa terasa coffee across the way and pretty soon we started talking about things we could do more collaboratively than just sitting and chatting about everyday affairs. And a business level. I was very pleased to come into Insight Communications Consultants, as a consultant, and have since worked with a number of really exciting companies. I don’t know whether we should name the the clients on our or not, there’s probably no need to but these are some significant and serious names that you’ve been able to attract to this agency and that your staff had been able to attract to the agency over the years. How has that happened? If you were to offer advice to someone starting a PR agency right now, who might think how on earth would I ever, as a foreigner, attract some Korea’s biggest companies to seek my services? What would you say? Is it a completely different world now to the one that you built your reputation on?

Michael Breen  06:33

And I don’t think it’s so different. It might be a little bit easier now. But there is a, you know, if you are experienced in journalism, there is sort of a natural transition into that transition into PR is not necessarily so complicated. I mean, starting your own company, as a foreigner in the Korean market is a different thing. And I think there’s an awful lot of business that we’ve not been able to get, because I’m a foreigner, you know, there’s that that’s the thing with consulting. The thing with consulting is that you, you need somebody familiar with the market that you’re interested in. But then that person needs to be familiar with where you’re coming from. So for example, if you’re a French company, the ideal consultant for you in Korea is a French person who can function and understand Korea, you know, what I mean? So, it’s been a little bit limiting, but, you know, the challenges are there, you know, whatever we do, in business, or life in general, anything that’s worthwhile has always been a challenge. So these things aren’t impossible. But I think you have to be sure that it’s what you want to do.

Alex Jenson  07:58

You’ve gone through this rebranding period. And I think it’s no coincidence that it’s happened around this time, during the pandemic, would you say now more than ever, even if it’s easier for new companies, in some respects, that it’s also harder, because of the way that companies might be readjusting their spending, for example, having suffered during the last couple of years?

Michael Breen  08:20

Well, not necessarily, because PR is a slightly different from other industry. You can compare it to legal work, for example, often in a crisis, and when there’s a downturn, there’s more work there for lawyers and PR people, because they’re, they’re a company’s in trouble. There are M&As, you know, ownership changes, reputational issues, to manage all that sort of thing. Something, you know, when there’s an economic downturn, things that advertising budgets get cut very quickly, because advertising is very expensive. PR is relatively cheap, compared to advertising. And so for those reasons, the pandemic isn’t necessarily causing problems. The only thing I’d say is that it’s sort of there’s there’s a general has been a sort of a damping down of business. So there’s, I think there’s more competition to secure the business that is available. But from what I understand, the PR industry has managed to weather this and been much more fortunate and say, you know, think that the tourism industry are in big trouble, you know, so if you’re, if you’re, for example, if you had a PR company that was specialized in travel and tourism, you would have had a really tough time the last two years but so far we’ve managed I can’t I can’t say we’re thriving, but we’re surviving, which I think is a positive in this environment.

Alex Jenson  10:02

And just briefly looking at the client break down again, without going to specifics just out of respect for them. And to perhaps limit the amount of time we need to wait for permission to mention them. We have at this company clients from abroad, as I suggested before, as well as large Korean companies and smaller Korean companies are seeking particular targets either within this market or are in other countries. That requires a kind of diverse staff base. And I guess that’s why the majority of staff are Korean. But there are also some foreign staff members with particular skills to target those is it important to embrace that kind of diversity? We’ve been talking a lot about this in the ESG sphere, of course, but for very practical and selfish reasons. It’s good to have diversity too.

Michael Breen  10:49

Well, I mean, diversity is fine, if it’s in my opinion, if it serves the needs the business, but as a something to be imposed upon a company, it can be problematic. So for example, if if the government passed a law, saying that we had to hire 50% men and women, I might be tempted to close the company down. I wouldn’t do it. Because public relations in South Korea is primarily for women. So I think over 17 years, I’ve hired eight men. Three of them are Korean, the worker in and are probably hired 80 women. So the diversity that we have, and if you look at our company, we’re small, a dozen people. We have foreigners, for I’ve always had a an English language editor, that that could be Korean, who’s fluent in English or foreigner, you know, but recently, we’ve been got more more work for Korean companies looking for international PR. So therefore, we have more foreigners. So we actually have three foreigners now. And but others are all Korean women. Why? I mean, I don’t get applications from Korean men, you know, and please don’t try and force me to scour for them. Because I think that would be detrimental to the business.

Alex Jenson  12:38

Yeah, that sounds like a whole topic that you could maybe tackle via this LinkedIn platform that has been very much invigorated of late. And Mike, you have already written an article. And it’s under the title five ways to improve your media exposure in Korea. And this is basically a kind of free bit of advice that you’ve sent out there, via LinkedIn, if anyone wants to read it for themselves, you can search inside communications consultants, and check it out. But basically, it’s a listicle. And you’ve got five bullet points with an explanation under each one. The first one is, double check what your audience reads, then it goes avoid TV, don’t expect feature stories, and before as make best use of press releases, and interviews. And number five, don’t assume reporters will visit your website. I’m just mentioning that just to give people a taste of it, I strongly recommend reading it in full. And we don’t have time to have you repeat all the points and go through them in detail. But broadly speaking, this is one of the big services that Insite offers, isn’t it? And it’s one of those areas of expertise that Insight has built the capacity to do it. Is it just about knowing these things and then putting them to action? Or does it not also tremendously help? Having a lot of good contacts on the ground?

Michael Breen  13:56

Well, I think, you know, well, it’s a good question. Korea’s changed a little bit like that, I’d say, a few years ago. Relations, you know, you characterize this country as a relationship country. And so therefore, having the contacts in the media was very, very important. And, you know, in public relations generally you you, you need to know, journalists and be familiar with how they operate, but you don’t need these days. You don’t need to specifically know people and reporters and Korean newspapers change their beat so frequently, sometimes every year. That and there are so many of them. If you’re at let’s say, if you’re in, I don’t know, say shipbuilding, for example. In your issuing a press release, it might go to a couple 100 people and 50 of those might be immediately you want to pay attention to. And yet those people will be changing so regularly. So the idea that the PR practitioners sort of his buddy, buddy and goes drinking with all of these people is just fantasy, which, which some tried to sort of push out there. But it’s just not true and it’s not necessary. What you need to know is how they will respond to the way you’re pitching to them is this will they consider your story newsworthy? If not, what’s what’s what could make it more newsworthy, all that sort of thing. And you also need other advice at the Korean media, light media everywhere in the world is suffering financially. So they’re always on the lookout for ways to make money. And you want to be very clear about where you stand on that. And so that the journalists know, if you’re coming out, and trading in information and news, you make that very clear. Whereas if they see that you might be a company that contributes to them, they’re going to look at your stories differently, ironically, maybe more reluctant to take them immediately, if they think that the might be contribution there for some of their projects or something else. So all these, it’s this kind of advice and understanding of the market in the circumstances. That’s really what you want your consultant to be giving you. And on the execution, and I think any, anybody in public relations, needs to be able to talk to journalists and and do that, you know, that’s sort of the bread and butter, but I think it’s the it’s the strategic advice, that is where the real value of the services.

Alex Jenson  16:55

Also this type of advice, and it was really interesting to read, particularly for me, because I’m doing this kind of work. But do you think that it changes significantly from client to client, let’s say you’ve got this huge multinational that everyone’s heard of, versus a foreign company that’s got a very specific, quite, maybe high tech goal that’s very relevant for a particular industry. But you know, frankly, is not going to get the choice and elbow interested in covering it.

Michael Breen  17:22

Yeah, but sometimes they do it. One thing, for example, or couple of things I’d say about the Korean media is that the print media, that the influential print media is quite serious. They’re not they’re not tabloid in their mentality, television is that’s why we say avoid television, then, so they’re quite serious. And one thing they’re serious about is their attitude of the newspaper to the their own country’s economy, which is very different from, say, European media. If the Korean journalist perceives that your product or your service is significant in the Korean market for some way, that it’s new, or it helps Korean companies or then they they will, even if they haven’t heard of you, they would be willing to write about you. Whereas in say, another market in I don’t know, in Britain or somewhere like that, for the main newspapers, you’d really need some kind of angle that is different, you know, live you throw a celebrity in there or something. Something like that was the sort of the Korean media is quite serious in that sense.

Alex Jenson  18:44

You know, when I was starting a radio in the UK was it’s almost laughable sometimes that the agencies would, would approach me and one of the famous ones I did was, I mean, I’ve done a lot, but one of the most famous examples of of a celebrity, was Terry Venables, the then England manager, or he’d been in the Manage I can’t remember if he still was at that point, but whatever it was, he was, and still is a football legend in the UK, and so they asked me, Would you like to interview Terry Venables, of course, then as a sports journalist, I was like, Yeah, sure. The catch is you have to mention in the interview, at some point, this particular brand of fish fingers. And and you said like, well, and basically what you had to do is just find a way to weave it in. And it was very hard, but if the name was attractive enough, you’d kind of do it anyway. So maybe we can use this point that you made and the extension of it that I that I just offered there just to ask how different it is seeking media exposure abroad versus in Korea, and we are generalizing here. As you’ve already suggested. There are cases even where the large papers in Korea will cover very specific angles. And I guess it depends, and there’s an answer that we have to offer as a caveat. But generally, if you could notice some of the trends between the global clients you have and the Korean clients, what would be different from the list that you provided in the Korean media goals versus if you are seeking something abroad?

Michael Breen  20:19

Well, one is that one big difference is that the Korean journalists are overworked. So you get a newsroom in, you know, in a traditional sense, a newsroom with 100 journalists in, say, an American newspaper, the Korean equivalent of that they’d probably have 30 journalists. And so a lot of these reporters have to write two or three stories a day. So for that reason, they can’t have their time wasted. They, they don’t have time to sort of double check stuff. So there’s a lot of sloppiness. They don’t have time to add, counter, you know, other opinions or, you know, they don’t have time to write feature stories. There’s very little appetite for feature stories, for example. And they are quite willing to take a press release, which is written as near to a new story in style as possible. Now, a lot of companies their press releases, for big legal documents every department jumps in on and then the lawyers have a look at in the end, they’re terribly turgid. affairs, often the main point way down in the story, and then some incredibly boring quote from the CEO. And they know this, because the journalists in the Western sense will see what the news is and then write the whole thing and make a few calls and research and you know, create their own piece, whereas Korean journalist is overworked might just drop it in almost as it is my edit a little bit or chop a bit. You know, these these are all things that I mean, I dare say it’s like that in some markets elsewhere. But it’s one distinction in the Korean market.

Alex Jenson  22:14

Just finally, on this general media front, the growth of companies offering feature stories within their own kind of newsrooms seems to have been an interesting trend. That’s just catching on in career, but not really, I mean, I think it’s very much in its infancy. But I know that we have some clients insight, who have taken advantage of this very service that’s provided by Insight. And I wanted to give you the opportunity just to address that, because just sending a press release out into the ether, seems like it’s not going to be effective on its own, but in combination, or perhaps instead of that you could craft some stories and try to place the messages in a much more engaging way than the traditional press release. And again, I don’t know whether it’s always going to be enough on its own, but it’s definitely going to be more engaging than just the old fashioned way that you just described before.

Michael Breen  23:06

Well, I think if you’re a multinational, or a non Korean company, looking for coverage in the Korean media, you don’t want you wouldn’t expect the reporters to go to your website. And that would be I think the case even with big, well known companies. And, you know, and I say that because a lot of companies in in advanced markets now, don’t think that their engagement media has changed a lot. What they tend to do is they’ll put press releases and other information on their website, perhaps and assume that the reporters who cover them in their industry will have alerts or just regularly go to the website, was the Korean reporter. being overworked is not going to go to your website. So you sending a press release or traditional way and then following up with a call to the journalists on the list of 200 the sort of doesn’t journalists, you want to make sure I’ve got it, you follow them follow up with a call and say, oh, there’s a press release out? Did you get it? However, the other way for Korean companies. The one or two of them are starting to see the big Chaebol. They’re starting to see the value of a new trend, which is not what you know, in your newsroom on your website is not simply to have announcements and press releases on there. But to also have well written feature stories and interviews with your you know, C suite people in your experts which journalists around the world will go to. And they might take out the stories, translate them into their own languages and run them as they are. Or they might just get ideas for stories. What, but this is very new. And as I say, only a handful of the major Chaebol have discovered this yet, but I think this is going I think this is going to be something that will they’ll pick up on quite soon.

Alex Jenson  25:28

Yeah, and you might think, well, the journalist is gonna see through this, it’s all very corporate but but actually, I would want to add a quick counter argument, which is that yes, of course, they’re going to realize that it’s coming from one side of the picture. But if you’re a journalist and you’re researching a company, one of the first places you look is their website. And it’s much better to find nicely packaged stories there then the poor English dry facts or other issues that might not tell them very much. In the best case scenario, the company can be so interesting and having such interesting products that they’re kind of excited by what they’re reading. This has been very interesting, Mike brain to sit down and talk with you, I suspect, we’re gonna have to do this again, or a number of themes because this is just scratching the surface. But in your position as CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, we wish you all the best.

Michael Breen  26:23

Thank you, Alex, and all the best to you as well. And KBLA and the podcast.

Alex Jenson  26:28

Thank you very much. Well, that’s a good opportunity just to say that if anyone wants to see more about what the KBLA is doing, head to LinkedIn and search, KBLA there, and while you’re on the page, Insight Communications Consultants, check out the new branding, and drop a note to see what you think of that. We’ll be back with yet another episode on Monday. Have a great weekend in the meantime.