SK Innovation adopts Turkish art for new ads
By Park Jae-hyuk
SK Innovation’s new advertisements expressed in the traditional Turkish art form of “ebru” have been the talk of the town. Better known as marbling here, ebru creates colorful patterns by sprinkling and brushing pigments onto a pan of oily water and then transferring the patterns to paper.
The oil refiner said Tuesday it collaborated with Turkish artist Garip Ay to create the advertisements under the theme “Big Picture of Innovation.” Ay has actively worked for global enterprises in Poland and Malaysia as well, depicting famous paintings including “The Starry Night” of Vincent Van Gogh.
“I was happy to collaborate with SK Innovation which is taking the lead in the global market, as well as in Korea’s energy and chemical industry,” Ay said. “I hope the new advertisements allow more Koreans to know the traditional Turkish art form of ebru.”
Working day and night, the artist earned favorable reviews for expressing SK Innovation’s distinctive image with fancy colors and elegant curves.
The new advertisements, which were unveiled earlier this month via SK Innovation’s official blog, Facebook, cable TV channels and newspapers, were viewed by more than 1 million people in 10 days on Facebook and Youtube.
TVCF, the nation’s largest advertisement portal, also selected the new ads as some of the most noticeable video commercials, praising SK Innovation for being the first Korean firm to adopt the ebru style.
“Adopting an art form of marbling for advertisements made me understand what innovation is,” an internet user said. “I had no choice but to focus on the message delivered by both male and female voice actors.”
Another user said that “The new ads mentioning both fact and impact was impactful enough for me to learn about SK Innovation’s global businesses.”
Last month, SK Innovation invited some 200 consumers, including college students, to a public exhibit of the ebru art form and held a question and answer session between the artist and consumers via Facebook live video streaming.
The company also held an exhibition at a movie theater in Seoul last week to listen to consumers’ opinions on the new advertisement and reflect the opinions in the follow-up advertisements.
“From selecting an advertising agency earlier this year to sharing opinions of the advertisements afterward, we’ve tried hard to encourage our customers to participate,” SK Innovation’s public relations head Lim Su-gil said. “Our innovative way of working is at the heart of our organizational culture.”
