I recently keynoted the Cannes Lions Creativity Forum in Seoul, South Korea. Picture below.
While I didn’t spend too much time in the city, I did learn a few things. Here they are:
- The Internet is crazy fast here. The hi-def final episode of Breaking Bad I downloaded took under seven minutes. Yes, they were seven long minutes.
- The Internet is at least partially restricted here. YouTube videos often wouldn’t play and Amazon Instant Video isn’t available. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but see #1.
- Samsung is huge. Bigger than Apple, even.
- Yahoo! is not. I asked all 200 conference attendees to raise their hands if they used Yahoo! Zero hands went up.
- I also asked all 200 attendees to raise their hands if they didn’t own a smartphone or tablet. Again, nary a hand went up.
- It’s common practice to give your business cards to someone as you’re meeting them. This is a bit different than in the US. I normally hand out a card after a brief conversation.
- The people are incredibly friendly. Just saying “Hello” earned me major points with everyone.
- I can’t recall getting better hotel service, ever. Keeping tourists happy seems to be critical.
- Golf is really important here. The hotel sported a driving range, and probably ten percent of the channels featured the sport. There is a public course five minutes from ICN.
- Action movies are very popular, especially American ones. No wonder Hollywood is content to churn out boilerplate flicks rife with car chases.
That’s about it. Did I miss anything?
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