Unexpected Intros: Young Hwan Park
At DDB, we have a simple belief. That Unexpected Works. It means that the best idea is the one you never saw coming. The thing that catches you so off guard that you can‘t look away. And the only path to genuinely unexpected works is through creativity.
And in order to create awesome works, you need awesome people. Because you can’t make the unexpected if you only work with the usual suspects. In this Unexpected Intros series, we take a peek behind the curtain at some of the diverse thinkers that make up our network, and validate Bill Bernbach’s notion that an idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
1. Name, Title, Office
Young Hwan Park, assistant media planner, DDB Korea
2. Introduce yourself in three emojis.
😅😴😎
3. What was your very first job?
Working at DDB Korea is actually my first full-time job! As a junior media planner, I’m learning something new every day through all the people I get to meet. I’m looking forward to continuing to develop my skills and growing in this field.
4. How did you wind up in advertising?
When I was younger, I was in awe of advertising genius Jae-seok Lee so I decided to study PR and advertising as my major at university. However, I soon realised that I lacked an artistic flare and therefore had no motivation for creative ideas. I felt that I couldn't go into any job if I lacked passion like this. Everything changed when I took a class called Media Planning Theory in my third year. It completely changed my understanding as I thought only creativity and art existed in the advertising world. Since I enjoyed math in school, I was very interested in work based on measuring various advertising data.
Although I’m working more behind the scenes of advertising, media planning gives me a sense of purpose as I can still contribute to a campaign’s success.
5. Piece of creative that inspires you?
I like how unique and witty Apple commercials are while maintaining a level of sophistication. However, there's a recent ad by Samsung for their Galaxy watch that’s been getting a lot of buzz lately. It features a circular shape, which represents the Galaxy watch, knocking down a number of blunt square shapes (I’m sure you can guess what they represent) that then result in a huge domino effect until all of the fallen dominoes are revealed to become another circular shape.
The theme itself could’ve been perceived as provocative, but it felt witty with the clever combination of background music and animation. It felt fresh and made me realise that Korea’s advertising scene has developed a lot.
6. What are you currently reading, watching, and listening to?
I tend to have the Studio Ghibli animated movies on rotation. I think I’ve seen Spirited Away about a hundred times. If you watch the same movie over and over, you always notice something new that you didn’t see before and it’s nice to reflect on its meaning each time. Also, falling asleep watching the main character Chihiro’s adventure for more peaceful dreams is one of my top life hacks!
7. What’s a goal/hope/dream of yours?
My life-long dream is to open my own café years down the line. If I ever end up leaving the advertising industry, I hope that I will have become skilled enough for my co-workers to miss me!
