The Impact of Korean Culture on Malaysian Consumer Behavior: A Report

This report examines the impact of Korean culture, or the 'Korean Wave,' on Malaysian consumer behavior. It explores how Korean dramas, music (K-pop), food, and beauty products have influenced Malaysian consumers, especially in terms of segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies. The report analyzes the growth in Korean tourism to Malaysia, highlighting the increasing preference for Korean products and cultural experiences among different age groups. It also discusses the opportunities for Korean companies in the Malaysian market, including the benefits of economic freedom, low corruption, and a skilled workforce. The report concludes by providing recommendations for Korean businesses to enhance their presence in Malaysia, such as focusing on customer relationships, expanding product offerings (e.g., baby products), and leveraging digital marketing strategies, including social media marketing, to attract the younger generation and foster consumer satisfaction.

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Characteristics of Malaysian consumers for Korean Culture
Globalization of Korean culture is becoming popular in the Asian locations including
Malaysia along with the European countries. Specifically, the Korean dramas, songs, and food
escalated continuously within the places of North and Southeast Asia including China, Japan,
Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia. Malaysia is a unique place for targeting for its diverse
compositions of race. One of its reason is the colonial past where Malaysia was extremely open
to the western media (Ahmed et al. 2013). However, the recent era is observed with new
phenomenon of Korean culture with unique dramas, songs, and foods aired with Malaysian
television networks. There are various internet platforms that promotes Korean entertainment
medias for the interested viewers.
Goh and Wahid (2015) linked the progress of Korean drama and Korean wave with the
culture. Majority of the researchers acknowledged the Koreans culture as the driver to its
success. The characteristics of Malaysian consumers will be demonstrated with regards to
segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Various studies have disclosed the fact that Korea and
their culture utilizes especially their dramas and K-pop music to influence the consumers (Noor,
Sreenivasan and Ismail 2013). They understand the consumer behavior as the study considering
the processes of individuals, organization in search, selection, use and disposal of goods,
services, experiences and concepts. They target the positions with prevalent interplay of forces
during the time of consumption procedure (Torri et al. 2017). Korean wave target the consumers
with characteristics of genetic preference of selection or attitude. Both the individual and
collective level of the consumers are observed with the influence of Korean wave. For an
instance, an individual might not have any interest for Korean music. However, the person can
be influenced by the surrounding of people influenced by the Korean wave.
Korean tourists are observed to influence the Malaysian consumers at a greater extent.
According to Park et al. (2014) Malaysia is one of the inbound marketplace for Korea that reach
up to 40% growth in the year 2011 and almost 44% in the year 2010. Increased rate of Hallyu’s
preference in the Malaysia, mostly the young and elder adults consumers are getting interested
towards Korea and their culture. The record of tourists from 1996 and the types of consumers the
Korean influenced are mentioned in the table below.

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Year Total Visitor Tour Purpose Age 21 - 30 Age 31- 40
1996 34,957 - - -
2005 96,583 - - -
2010 113,675 - - -
2015 223,350 199,705 57,464 48,998
2016 311,254 280,039 80,238 65,130
2017 307,641 279,558 82,132 63,423
Table 1. Malaysian visitors and Korean influence
Apart from music and drama, the beauty products of Korea, are also wining the heart of
Malaysian consumers. The female consumers of Korea regardless of their age and complexion
and financial condition tend to get attracted for the Korean beauty products. Besides the beauty
products, Korean cuisines are there to attract the Malaysian consumers at a greater rate (Elfving-
Hwang 2013). Malaysian market place is also influenced by the language used by the Korean
consumers. Hence, it can be said that, the expansion of Korean wave has reached within various
sectors of Malaysian marketplace (Elfving-Hwang, 2013). The Korean culture is one of the
influential environment factor observed within the locality of high popularity and the people are
shifting their taste of buying Korean products.
Moreover, it can be said that, in regard to the Malaysian marketplace, the Korean culture
and American culture is ruling over. Elfving-Hwang (2013) mentioned that, television and
entertainment is the only medium Koreans are using to attract the Malaysian consumers. The
television and digital devices are among the most inspirational medium that delivers the kind of
information including ideologies, norm, regulations irrespective of age and class (Noor,
Sreenivasan and Ismail, 2013). The population of Korean consumers in the Malaysian market are
25% old, over 30% are over the age group of 24. According to the customer profile of Korean
consumers in the Malaysian market, reflects almost 33,221,858 GDP per capita is won by the
Korean products (Goh and Wahid 2015). Malaysia is a place with huge consumerism both by the
local and the people who visit the place yearly. Purchase is the way to serve the primary needs
regarding the image and reasons of status. The economic progress of some Korean products
attracts the Malaysian consumers to invest on luxury and trendy goods. The more detailed
products attract the consumers more. Along with that, Korean wave continuously incorporate

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some changing strategies for providing more consumer satisfaction. Hence, consumers are
getting less attracted to the domestic products and increasing interest for the Korean products.
Opportunities of Korean companies within Malaysian marketplace
The popularity of Korean products is the driving force behind the Asian-Korea Center to
dispatch a planning namely ‘Investment Mission Delegation’ for Malaysian companies for smart
manufacturing of goods. The main component of this delegation planning is the Korean business
personnel and experties. These personnel are allowed to visit the places namely Kuala Lumpur
and Melaka for the investigation of business opportunities (Lee 2013). The ‘Seminar on Business
Opportunities in Malaysia’s Smart Manufacturing’ was organized at MIDA. The participants of
this seminar were the representatives of 7 Korean business owners specialized in industrial
automation and robotics. They were receiving positive briefing about the latest policies of
investments by one of the partner of MIDA. This incident was succeeded by the presentation of
the smart manufacturing of Korean products by the experts of Korean institution in the
Malaysian market.
The positive sides of the Korean products possess to market within Malaysia are
mentioned in the following section. The products have a high economic freedom. According to
the reports the economic freedom of Korean products is 71.2 (Lee 2013). It makes the products
one of the 31 free economies as per the record of 2014. It also mentioned that it has been
enhanced the position on 0.9 percent more considering the growth observed during the last few
fiscal year. Korean culture is comparatively free from corruption (Park and Song 2014). These
concepts make the Korean products and wave a clear and beneficial mode of doing business with
any marketplace including Malaysia. According to the research the opportunities of Korean
products can provide a strong competitive advantage to the proposed business country. Along
with this, the Malaysian marketplace is observed with strong and reliable sources of supplier for
the raw materials (Noor, Sreenivasan and Ismail, 2013). This marketplace is observed with
providing the extreme customer satisfaction from the initial period of time.
The corporate industry of Malaysia is observed with highly skilled workforce. The
management department is strong and trained along with that it is capable enough to provide
training and development program to the fresh and existing workforce of any organization
(Moslehpour et al. 2017). For an instance, the Korean Electric Power Corporation is observed to

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invest on the Malaysian marketplace. They maintain a strong portfolio over the past few years.
On the other hand, the marketplace of Malaysia is observed with excellent use of automation and
innovative technologies. Hence, the Korean waves have a greater opportunity to do business
within the Asian market including the Malaysian marketplace. It is worth to be mentioned here,
that the strong community of the Malaysian population have greater preference for Korean
products covering various domains (Park and Song 2014). Hence, the Korean business has a
great future within the Malaysian marketplace.
In general, it is observed that Korean business owners are very much loyal to their
consumer behavior. This is one of the most important reason the consumers are pushing their
interest for the Korean brands with the best price with better usage (Park et al. 2014). Koreans
business owners are very connected. Korean business owners are using the social media network
to get the review for self-assessment. Koreans business owners always looking for relaxation free
time. The image of an excellent tourist destination is providing greater opportunities for the
Korean product to emerge within the Malaysian market.
The Korean wave impacts the intra-regional tourism especially within the places
including Singapore, Japan, and Malaysia (Shin 2017). All the mentioned opportunities
contribute to the influence of Hallyu within the visitors as mentioned by the Tourism
Organization (KNTO). The Malaysian marketplace is always paying a welcoming attitude to
incorporate innovative technology within the corporate industry. People are always becoming a
major role to help the business equipment smarter. Places including Kuala Lumpur provides
greater opportunities for small business specially (Park et al. 2014). The business owners are
experiencing a positive condition with providing many job opportunities with proper investment
of technology and innovation.
An extensive survey conducted by researchers reflect that more than three thousand small
business of Korean products are operating in Malaysia. Along with this, more than thirty percent
of Malaysian business added Korean products in their business dealing (Noor, Sreenivasan and
Ismail, 2013). These small businesses are using digital technologies to bring further changes
within the entire business industry.
Creating satisfaction for consumers within the Malaysian market

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According to the news of Kuala Lumpur the percentage of consumer satisfaction in
Malaysian market is increasing day by day. Along with the new challenges and opportunities the
dealers, the salespeople are incorporating new opportunities with the Korean products to deal in
the Malaysian market (Park and Song 2014). In this section the paper will demonstrate few
recommendations for Korean wave to deal within the Malaysian marketplace.
There are many areas the Korean business must consider to improve their products in
regards to do more business within the Malaysian marketplace. The modern Korean business
provides strong values for their customs, traditions, and values. Korean Business should pay
more focus on the business etiquettes. They should pay more focus to the relationship building
with the consumers rather than merely promoting the business within the Malaysian culture.
Customer relationship will help the business owners to build strong business recognition within
the marketplace other than Korea (Moslehpour et al. 2017). Malaysia is a place where people
possess the nature of strong adaptability. This increases the trust factor for any business
organization. Building a strong communication between the customer and the business owner
leads to more customer increase enhance the customer relationship.
The Koreans are observed with providing foods, entertainment, and beauty products
worldwide. They should focus on launching some baby products. Baby product is an extremely
huge industry spread over the corporate industry covering the entire world (Park and Song 2014).
They can launch baby products including pushchairs, baby cots, feeding equipments as well
some baby food products. It will increase their business as well as it will build a positive
impression on the entire business industry.
In terms of promotion, the Korean business can incorporate the concept of innovative
technology within their way of promoting the business. For instance, an organization dealing
with Korean products should opt for social media marketing for promoting their name on various
social media platforms (Lee 2013). People are becoming technology savvy day by day. Every
common people use to build strong connection with social media marketing and other mode of
digital marketing. Digital marketing is the latest innovation of technology that enhances the
reputation of any business organization.
Promoting or advertising were done through word of mouth initially. It could bring
negative fortune for the business organization as well as positive outcome (Noor, Sreenivasan

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and Ismail, 2013). The introduction of digital marketing promotes the name of the business
through various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest
(Torri et al. 2017). People of every class and group take an active participation in social media
for building connection. Korean products are less observed within the marketplace of Facebook.
Hence, they must focus on social media marketing in terms of business. It will be able to attract
the young generation of the Malaysian population (Park and Song 2014). They should
incorporate better negotiation strategy to do business in the Malaysian marketplace.

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