How to Advertise WebNovels: A Case Study on Naver Series VS KakaoPage Video Ads
Naver and Daum, South Korea's leading portal sites, primarily drive traffic through popular digital content. Among these, films, TV shows, webtoons, and webnovels play a particularly significant role. While films and TV shows benefit from their inherently visual nature, making them easier to promote through video ads, advertising text-based webnovels poses a unique challenge. How do you captivate an audience with a medium that lacks immediate visual appeal? Two video ad campaigns—Naver Series and KakaoPage—offer distinct approaches to this challenge, each with different outcomes.
Background and Objectives
Naver Series is a digital content platform offering web novels, webtoons, e-books, and more. In 2019, Naver launched a video ad campaign titled "Masterpiece Series" to bring public attention to web novels, a relatively unfamiliar medium at the time. The video campaign gained widespread attention and was awarded the Grand Prix at the Seoul Video Advertisement Awards.
Naver Series ‘The Remarried Empress’ Video Ad Analysis
- Concept: The ad featured well-known actors delivering web novel dialogue, focusing entirely on the emotional weight of the story.
- Execution: Using black-and-white cinematography and close-up shots, the ad zooms in on the actors’ subtle expressions, creating an intense focus on the story’s dialogue. Minimal background and props are used, allowing viewers to concentrate fully on the emotions conveyed through the lines.
- Plot Twist: At the climax, it is revealed that the actors are performing not for a movie or drama, but for a web novel. This surprise twist piques the audience’s curiosity about the web novel format, drawing them in.
- Result: By disguising the medium at first, the video ad successfully engages viewers in the story before revealing it as a web novel, generating positive reactions and boosting interest in the work.
KakaoPage ‘The Villainess is a Marionette’ Video Ad Analysis
- Concept: A dramatic live-action trailer adapting the web novel into a cinematic format.
- Execution: Featuring popular actors such as Cha Eun-woo and Han So-hee, the video emphasized vivid, high-production visuals, aiming to capture the grandeur of the web novel’s medieval fantasy setting.
- Response: However, the elaborate visuals and unfamiliar medieval costumes made the web novel’s world seem alien to many viewers, preventing full immersion in the story. While the ad drew attention for its striking visuals, it ultimately distracted viewers from the narrative, leading to less curiosity about the web novel itself.
Conclusion
Naver Series used a minimalist video ad to intensify the focus on the web novel’s storyline, creating a more immersive experience for viewers. In contrast, KakaoPage’s high-production, visually stunning ad may have caught attention but did not effectively engage viewers with the story. These cases highlight the importance of tailoring video ad strategies to the strengths of the medium being promoted.
(+)
About Naver Series
Naver Series is a digital content platform operated by Naver, South Korea's largest web portal. The platform offers a wide range of digital content, including web novels, webtoons, e-books, and audiobooks. Launched as a part of Naver's strategy to dominate the digital content market, Naver Series allows users to purchase, subscribe to, or access content for free, providing a flexible and engaging experience for readers. It has become a leading platform in South Korea for serialized digital storytelling, particularly in web novels and webtoons, featuring a variety of genres such as romance, fantasy, and drama.
0 Comments