Controversy over 'Cheong Commercial Use'; Cultural Heritage Administration Announces "Improvement of Filming Permission Procedures"

"No exposure of specific product names or promotional filming allowed in the future"

The Cultural Heritage Administration's Blue House Public Opening Promotion Team recently decided to improve the filming permission procedures after controversy arose over a video commercially utilizing the Blue House. On the 9th, they released an explanatory statement saying, "From now on, all filming applications using the Blue House as a background will be prohibited from exposing specific product names or being used for promotional purposes." They added, "We will improve the procedures so that filming can only be permitted on the condition that the final output is reviewed before use."

The problematic video was an episode of 'Everywhere' featuring the Blue House, streamed on June 5th via the YouTube channel of IHQ's mobile online video service (OTT) 'Babayo.' One of Shinsegae Casa's main products, a sofa, appeared in the video. It was presented as short-form content observing citizens' reactions when encountering 'unexpected furniture' in various spaces, but after its release, there were numerous criticisms suggesting it was intended to promote a specific product. In fact, the video included captions such as "The first sofa to visit the Blue House in Korea!" and "This is the Cloud Sofa."

IHQ received permission in June to film content introducing key Blue House facilities and capturing furniture and situations appearing in unexpected places in a hidden camera style. Regarding this, the Promotion Team emphasized, "IHQ did not provide any explanation during the consultation process about using a specific brand's sofa product or for corporate promotional purposes," and added, "Since it was used differently from the originally approved purpose, we requested the post to be taken down." The video has currently been removed.

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