Correlation Between Hyundai Card and Naver, and Brand Identity

Correlation Between Hyundai Card and Naver, and Brand Identity

By operating my WordPress blog, I have known about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and search engine. As aspect of branding, I want to share a trend and situations about that. This article is about not SEO, but branding.

Search Trend

Basically, our society is being more varied than before. This being so, as new services are introduced and those are popularized, some customers on the existing platforms or services are moving into new one. A speed for this trend is faster. Recently, as YouTube is more popular and become new trend, most users on the existing search platforms have moved into YouTube.

This is caused by a transformation of popular contents from static to dynamic, which is like moving from image contents to streaming contents. Recently, a new trend appeared that young people do search via YouTube rather than the existing search site, to get the things they want.

Naver is No.1 up to now

Nevertheless, No.1 of market share in Korea’s search market is ‘Naver’. However, it seems to be hard that Naver maintain No.1 title in the market. Naver was monopolistic, 1~2 years ago, because their market share was about 80 percent.

However, recently, their market share decreased by 50 percent. To return it, they have tried to make new services and expose high-trustful contents. But, it seems to be hard because they are not trendsetter anymore.

Brand Identity

Naver is a portal, which means that it has everything most people need, such as various contents and services. In the initial stage of Naver, they were very successful by launching ‘Ji-Sik-In(means ‘Knowledge Person’)’. It led a lot of inflow to their site. And then, to maintain their high market share, they had launched a lot of services on their portal.

However, those tries made Naver to have uncertain brand positioning. Relatively, their search function is worse than Google. And, quality of contents on other platforms is better than on Naver.

As a result, they have been losing their position in the market. More important thing is not losing market share, but weakening brand identity.

Case Study: Hyundai Card

Market share of Hyundai Card was almost the last in their initial stage. However, now, they are within Top 5 in the market, by having long-term strategy, creative business, and firm branding strategies. Those strategies focus on young people. Even though some people thought their strategies are too much in the initial stage, they have kept their way for a long time. Until now, they are maintaining their business to reinforce their brand identity.

A key point is that increasing market share and market ranking is not important. More important thing is brand image. It appears when most people recall a brand. Hyundai Card has a strong brand image such as young, creative, and polished.

Closing… And, expected future of Naver

If Naver is going like this, their market share may be lost in the near future. Their No.1 title will be altered by Google. However, a key point of this is not losing their No.1, but fading their brand identity.

Even though a comparison between Hyundai Card and Naver may be not appropriate, it is certain that Naver’s future is at least not bright.

Recently, except for a case of Naver, most famous brands are fading their brand identity by expanding business. This is a recent trend. Therefore, if most companies do not change their strategy and reinforce brand identity, it will be hard to survive in the market.

Correlation Between Hyundai Card and Naver, and Brand Identity

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External Reference(Link), Korean Ver.:

• 네이버 VS 구글 검색 점유율 변화상