Posco wins top prize at Korea JoongAng Daily’s Advertising Awards

Posco Holdings won top prize at the Korea JoongAng Daily’s annual Advertising Awards on Tuesday for its campaign on lithium production from a salt lake in Argentina.

Korea JoongAng Daily’s annual Advertising Awards winners pose with Korea JoongAng Daily CEO Cheong Chul-gun, third from left, on Tuesday at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel in Gangnam District. From left: Park Jin-woo, head of communication team at Posco Holdings, Cho Kye-yong, senior manager of public relations team at Hyundai Mobis and Park Jin-young, head of communication team at KB Financial Group. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Posco Holdings won top prize at the Korea JoongAng Daily’s annual Advertising Awards on Tuesday for its campaign on lithium production from a salt lake in Argentina.

In its 58th year, the JoongAng Advertising Awards selects the best print ads published in the Korea JoongAng Daily, the JoongAng Ilbo and JoongAng Sunday. The results are based on assessments from a group of judges and a reader survey.

A total of 21 awards were given by the three publications. The Korea JoongAng Daily selected four print ads. Posco Holdings was awarded the grand prize, while SK Inc. went home with the platinum prize and KB Financial Group and Hyundai Mobis won the gold.

Posco Holdings took home the Korea JoongAng Daily’s top prize.

Its ad featured an image of the Hombre Muerto salt lake, where it has mining rights for lithium, a core material for electric vehicle batteries. The project is emblematic of the company’s transition towards new businesses, like materials for EV batteries, and hydrogen production from the traditional steel business. “Over the past 50 years, Posco contributed to laying foundation for Korea’s economic growth with its steel business,” said Park Jin-woo, head of communication team at Posco Holdings. “With its conversion into a holdings unit structure, the company aims to become a leader in eco-friendly materials, such as lithium and nickel."

“We are grateful for being awarded with top prize and will continue to carry out projects that could foster sustainable development,” he said.

The platinum prize went to SK Inc’s “Earth with Us” ad. The ad is designed to encourage young people to join different environment campaigns via its Instagram account.

“A total of 30,000 people participated in the campaign,” explained Ji Dong-won, the company’s team leader at Brand Management division.

“To appeal to younger people, we collaborated with celebrities and influencers,” Ji said.

The campaign ran from September through November.

KB Financial Group was awarded the gold prize for its ad promoting the saving of honeybees under the threat of extinction. The company built bee habitats on the roof of its headquarters as a part of “K-Bee Project.”

“The bee project is only the first in a series of initiatives for conserving the environment,” said Park Jin-young, head of KB Financial Group’s communication team, adding that a campaign for reducing food waste followed.

Alongside with KB, Hyundai Mobis was also granted the gold prize for its ad highlighting its focus on software development in automotive business.

“Since the concept of software is hard to understand for many, we tried to describe software as the brain of human,” said Park Jin-ho, vice president of communication at Hyundai Mobis.

Around 80 corporate advertising professionals attended the awards ceremony held at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel in Gangnam District.