GANGWON-DO < invest Korea

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) South Korea will begin a global campaign this week to promote the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games worldwide with the events a mere 11 months away in the eastern South Korean town of PyeongChang, the government said Monday.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it will soon set up a comprehensive and organized plan for international promotion of the PyeongChang Olympics in cooperation with its subsidiary agency -- the Korean Culture and Information Service -- and Korean cultural centers in foreign countries.

The overseas campaign will begin with airing promotional video clips for the PyeongChang Winter Games on NBC, the official American broadcaster of the upcoming games in South Korea, on Tuesday (U.S. time).

The Winter Olympics are set to run on Feb. 9-25, 2018, in PyeongChang, some 180 kilometers east of Seoul, and the neighboring towns of Gangneung and Jeongseon.

The clips, which last from one minute to two minutes and 30 seconds, will be shown once a week on three NBC programs -- the "Today Show," "NBC Morning News" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers."

Those programs will be directly followed by a separate public ad on the Olympics, produced by the Korea Tourism Organization, according to the ministry. The English-language TV advertisement titled "Draw Your Winter Story in PyeongChang 2018" has already garnered more than 17 million views on YouTube.

Following NBC, the government will release the promotional clips on major television networks of countries like Peru and Vietnam whose peoples have relatively less interest in winter sports.

The government will offer about 100 journalists from some 40 countries a chance to visit venues of the games and feel the Olympic vibes beforehand. The Korean cultural centers in 31 regions around the world will hold exhibitions and cultural performances related to the PyeongChang Winter Games. They will also showcase sculptures of the two official mascots - Soohorang, a white tiger, and Bandabi, an Asiatic black bear - on permanent display and run a promotional booth for the games, according to the ministry.

sshim@yna.co.kr

Copyrights Yonhap News. All Rights Reserved.
Reprint or redistribution without permission is prohibited.

Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Mar. 6, 2017)