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| Kim Seon-yeong, middle, and Kim Kyeong-ae, right, sweep the ice after Kim Yeong-mi throws the stone during training at Gangneung Curling Center, Feb. 22. / Yonhap |
By Ko Dong-hwan
The South Korean women's curling team at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics has surprised the world, beating countries expected to win medals such as Canada, Switzerland and the United States and coming out of the preliminaries on top.
For a team not expected to win a medal in curling, the record of eight wins and one loss leads people to wonder how the girls from Uiseong County in North Gyeongsang Province who threw their stones and swept their brooms have done so well.
Online messages show the nationwide craze for the girls, as people mimic the curlers, sweeping the floor with a broomstick in front of their TVs as the South Korean curlers throw their stones during Olympic matches. Some office workers played their own games, using robot vacuums and sticks as curling stones and brooms.
As curling's growing popularity in the nation is on rise, "Team Kim" (because all five players' last names are Kim), or the "garlic girls" (because of Uiseong's specialty crop), are considered the top choice for endorsements for certain manufacturers. The way they sweep the ice, the way they control the stones, they could make perfect commercials _ thought vacuum cleaner makers.
On South Korean electronic appliance manufacturers, from global brands such as Samsung and LG to local competitors like Dayou Winia, Yujin Robot and Dyson, the curling team has made a strong impression. Following the PyeongChang Olympics where the athletes will leave a huge footprint, commercial endorsements featuring them can potentially create a strong marketing effect for whoever hires them.
For Samsung and LG, however, members of the curling team are a far-fetched idea. As much as the firms admit the athletes' potential value in the ad industry, they are stuck by certain internal situations that pose as deterrents.
Samsung Electronics, despite being the official partner of the PyeongChang Olympics, toned down its marketing during the Olympics because of its Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong's involvement in the corruption scandal that got former President Park Geun-hye ousted.
Lee allegedly sponsored Park's influence-peddler Choi Soon-sil by donating over 20 billion won ($1.85 million) to the Mir and K-Sports foundations that Choi established to receive bribes from him and other conglomerate heads. He also allegedly gave a horse to Choi's daughter, a dressage competitor. His connections to sports have led the company to avoid being linked to the Olympics too visibly.
LG Electronics already sponsored the South Korean men's national ice hockey team by hiring them as spokesmodels for its wireless vacuum cleaner Cordzero A9. The fact that the company is not the PyeongChang Olympics' official electronic appliance sponsor contributes to the company's hesitation in hiring the curling team.
With the major manufacturers aside, smaller companies are expected to put pressure on each other by carefully calibrating their chances to put the women in their ads.
"Most electronic appliance shops in South Korea know hiring the women of the South Korean curling team for their ads will boost their marketing," an ad industry insider said. "The business operators are especially wary the athletes might be hired away by their rivals."
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