Correspondence: Jong Woo Jun, Department of Advertising College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida P.O. Box 118400, Gainesville, Florida 32611-8400 USA. Tel: +1 352 846 1060; Fax: +1 352 846 5117; e-mail: jongwjun@gmail.com

¹is an advertising doctoral student in the University of Missouri at Columbia. He finished his masters degree at the University of Florida. He worked in advertising business as an account executive in South Korea for ten years.

²is a full time lecturer at the School of Communications, Dankook University, Seoul, South Korea. He earned his PhD degree in the Department of Advertising at the University of Florida. Previous to his study, he worked in the advertising business. He has worked for LGAd and Crayfish in South Korea. He received a BA and an MA, both in mass communication from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea. His research interests include international branding and event marketing.

³is a doctoral student in Department of Advertising, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida. His research focusses on brand personality, intercultural communication and health communication.

Received 9 August 2007; Revised 9 August 2007.

Abstract

This study explores the characteristics of the rapidly changing South Korean (S. Korea) pharmaceutical market, specifically focussing on the erectile dysfunction drug market. The S. Korean drug market is in the middle of a significant transition stemming from a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, as well as the separation of dispensary services from Korean medical practices. Due to strict restrictions on DTC (direct-to-consumer) marketing in S. Korea, the role of BTL (below-the-line) marketing has received a considerable amount of attention from both researchers and industry marketers. Little is, however, known about its real-world application to a fast-moving market such as one finds in S. Korea. Thus, the understanding of how BTL can be applied to a specific market would be meaningful for the elaboration and implementation of marketing action. The findings show that the most useful and most frequently used marketing communication tools for erectile dysfunction drug marketing in S. Korea were academic symposia and public relations (PR) events. While their primary marketing target was doctors and pharmacists, marketers also use various BTL marketing tools to communicate with consumers. By using press releases about their activities, they effectively convey their brand information to a general target audience. Finally, the implications of BTL marketing for researchers and practitioners are discussed.