'Korea Companion Sale' Korea PR Awards Grand Prize

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Park Young-sun, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) announced on the 19th that the "2020 Korea PR Awards" hosted by the Korea Public Relations (PR) Association awarded the "Korea Together Sale Campaign" the Grand Prize in the Public Issue PR category. The Korea PR Association selects successful PR cases every year by considering professionalism, completeness, creativity, timeliness, and results of promotional activities to improve the quality of PR activities. The awards cover a total of 13 categories, and the Korea Together Sale Campaign was selected in the Public Issue PR category.

According to the Ministry, the Korea Together Sale promoted products from small and medium enterprises and small business owners to the global market and encouraged the digital economy transition for small business owners and self-employed individuals through online non-face-to-face sales such as live commerce and QR code sales. The digital campaign "Together Butterfly Challenge," planned for overcoming the COVID-19 crisis and nationwide participation in the Korea Together Sale, garnered national interest and response with 10 million views and 4,530 participation videos.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and all affiliated teams also installed large banners of the Together Sale at nine major baseball stadiums to promote to the public, creating a new public-private cooperation PR model for crisis recovery. Additionally, major events were broadcast live worldwide, recording 840,000 viewers, 45 million likes, and 150,000 real-time comments.

These promotional efforts are evaluated to have had a positive effect on recovering consumer sentiment, which had been depressed due to COVID-19, as sales increased for neighborhood supermarkets and small business owners. Kim Joong-hyun, the Ministry's PR officer, stated, "Based on the experience of the Together Sale, we are preparing the 'Value Christmas Market' event to support small business owners' online entry and sales increase for nine days starting December 19," adding, "We ask for much interest and participation so that it becomes the most beautiful and warm Christmas for small business owners in the world."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.