Mass media like television and internet always acts as an easy and important channel to deliver messages and promote ideas. They may attract audiences’ attention on certain issue in quick pace and increase its familiarity drastically among the society through advertisements, sponsorship and news reports, etc. (Babin, Chebat, and Robicheaux 1279). In recent years, café in Korea received a relatively high exposure in the mass media which increase familiarity of the cafés and shape the brand image in a large extent, especially for some café brands.
Television commercials of cafés brands always have strong implication between coffee and romance and warmth (Song 49). They like to associate with love, family and intimacy to develop a connection with drinking coffee. The 2014 TV commercial of Angel-in-us coffee showed that a boy, Baek seong-hyeon (백성현), met a fascinating girl, Han ji-wan (한지완) when he was drinking coffee in Angel-in-us coffee shop. This romantic encounter of two customers built an association with their café brand which aimed to create a sense of warmth and intimacy among Korean audience if they patronize their cafés.
Exposure in Mass Media
There are many other examples in Korean Drama and variety shows showing images of cafés. For instance, the drama, "Coffee Prince" (커피프린스1호점), was aired in 2007. It is revised from a romantic fiction of the same topic and talks about a love story taking place in a real café located in Hong-dae area(홍대). After the broadcast of the drama, the café has opened for the public and become popular tourist attraction being introduced in Korean Tourism Organization’s website.
Other than Coffee Prince, a latest drama, "the Heirs" (상속자들 2014), also showed a lot of pictures of the café brand, “Coffee bene”, because of its sponsorship on the drama. The main actress works in this café and the main actor always meet her there and, therefore, the café was usually seen in this drama.
Apart from dramas, a variety show also helped to promote a café. The episode 182 of a popular variety show in Korea, "Infinite Challenge", aired on 5 December 2009, filmed in Think Coffee in New York and the host needed to complete a set of tasks. The interview of Moschen (21 Sep. 2012) found that this aroused audiences’ interest of the café and become a must-see attraction in New York for Korean tourists. In addition, the café owner received 30 emails from Korean customers seeking to open a branch in Seoul.
The fact reveals the incredible influence of mass media on Korean audiences which effectively helps the café business. Moreover, the effect of sponsorship contributes to a positive marketing performance regarding an increase in brand awareness, brand sales and goodwill (Dzogbenuku et al. 66). Therefore, more café brands tend to advertise or sponsor and that increases exposure of café images in the mass media.
