How BTS Made Seoul Feel Like a Place to Spend Time

As BTS gained an international audience, more people began paying attention to Korean culture. Even people who didn’t follow K-pop had heard the name, and seeing the group on the Billboard charts was becoming familiar.

By then, appointing BTS as ambassadors and making a tourism spot with them seemed a natural step for Seoul. Cities had used famous artists in tourism advertising before. BTS had an especially large audience willing to see what the city looked like to them.

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A City Shown Through Everyday Life

The tourism spot runs about a minute and a half. There’s enough time for it to make a distinct choice about how to show the city.

N Seoul Tower and Gwanghwamun aren’t the center of the story. The camera spends its time on ordinary things you can do in Seoul, like having chicken and pizza by the Han River or grilling pork belly at a restaurant.

The spot makes its case by showing you how you might spend an afternoon or evening. The rhythm of the city comes through in those small scenes.

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BTS at Home in the City

The way the group appears is part of the effect. The members don’t stop to give the camera a tour or deliver a message. They spend time together in the city.

They look less like people who’ve been hired to pose for an advertisement and more like people who live here.

The group is famous enough to draw people to the video. Once you’re watching, it’s the way they spend their time that makes the city seem worth a visit.

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A Song to Remember Seoul By

The other part of the campaign was “With Seoul”, a song by BTS with a music video of its own. It gives the scenes and places in the campaign a feeling that carries beyond the screen.

The emphasis is on being somewhere together, in the present moment. Seoul comes across as somewhere you might want to spend time with someone.

Taken together, the tourism spot and the song leave a memory of the city’s atmosphere, even if you can’t recall any one shot.

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Seoul Moved at the Right Time

The city brought BTS into its tourism work as their international audience was growing. The casting brought attention, and the film gave viewers a chance to see how naturally the group fit into the ordinary life of Seoul.

The campaign is content to show a city where it would be pleasant to spend an evening. BTS gives an international audience a familiar way into those scenes.

The campaign gives you a few ways to imagine being in Seoul and a song that brings the feeling back.