Daesang to promote its kimchi in Times Square through Nov. 6

Daesang is displaying advertisements for its kimchi in Times Square, New York, aiming to promote the food in the United States.

Daesang's kimchi advertisement on Times Square in New York [DAESANG]

Daesang is displaying advertisements for its kimchi in Times Square, New York, aiming to promote the food in the United States.

According to Daesang on Wednesday, it will display advertisements for its Jongga Kimchi on a Times Square billboard through Nov. 6. The video advertisement has been displayed since Monday, and will play 240 times a day.

The company says kimchi is drawing global attention because people became more interested in enhancing their health and immunity during the pandemic. The advertisement is being displayed as the company hopes the interest will continue, despite the pandemic slowly coming to an end.

Some 1 billion won ($701.7 million) was used for the advertisement from the planning to production stages, with Lim Se-ryung, vice chairwoman of Daesang Holdings, participating in the project.

Jongga Kimchi is one of Daesang’s major products, with the company making up for 60 percent of Korea’s kimchi exports.

The company exports kimchi to over 40 countries. The United States is one country it is trying to focus more on, considering it is the second largest kimchi importer following Japan. Korea's kimchi exports to the United States rose 22.5 percent on year to $28.25 million last year. Daesang’s kimchi exports to the United States increased, up 37.8 percent on year to $16.2 million.

Daesang has been selling its kimchi at select Walmart branches in the United States since last year, and aims to gradually offer its products at more branches.

To ramp up production, it opened a new kimchi factory in California in March, which is its first non-Asian production base. It has invested 20 billion won to build the factory, which can annually produce 2,000 tons of kimchi.

Daesang plans to further expand its production capacity in the country, with the goal of reaching 100 billion won in annual sales in the U.S. market by 2025.

BY BAEK IL-HYUN, LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]