STOCKHOLM · ㅊㅇㅈ · BY WAY OF SEOUL
Influencer marketing and creative localization for European brands entering the Korean market. I built Gaston Luga's Korean operation from zero — Naver SEO, influencer systems, localized creative, team leadership. Korea became their #2 foreign market in under a year.
CASE 01 · GASTON LUGA · 2019—2023
Here is exactly how it was built.
Gaston Luga, a Swedish accessories brand, had zero Korean market presence. Korea runs on Naver, not Google — its own search engine, its own social ecosystem, and a strong cultural preference for locally trusted voices over Western-style broadcast campaigns. A standard EU playbook does not work here.
I was brought in as Senior Marketing Associate and Korea Team Leader. I built the operation end-to-end: a Naver-led organic content strategy, an influencer identification and briefing system across Naver Blog, Instagram, and YouTube, localized creative guidelines for Korean production partners, and a Korean team recruited and managed from zero. In under a year, Korea was Gaston Luga's #2 foreign market by revenue.
CASE 02 · BRAND SYSTEMS · HYPER ISLAND 2024
Localization fails when the source brand system is loose. If the logo rules are ambiguous, the color palette undefined, the tone of voice unwritten — local partners and influencers will execute inconsistently, and the brand dissolves in translation.
This Hyper Island project was an exercise in building a system tight enough to survive market transfer: wordmark and secondary logo with clear usage rules, a locked color palette with defined hierarchy, a type system, filled and outlined pattern variants, photography direction, and a full guideline document rolled out across business cards, ads, invoices, a client portal, and a landing page. The same discipline I bring to every Korea localization brief.
CASE 03 · UX RESEARCH · HYPER ISLAND 2024
Korean buyers behave differently from European buyers at every stage of the funnel — different trust signals, different proof requirements, different platform behavior. You cannot localize a campaign without first understanding where and why the journey diverges. Assumption is the most expensive mistake in market entry.
This project, a research-led UX brief for a yoga studio, was run end-to-end: user interviews, persona development, wireflows for tablet and web, wireframes across breakpoints, and a final UI for the classes booking flow. The method — interview, model, then design — is the same process I apply before any Korean market campaign brief.
SELECTED WORK · EU ↔ KR
Real work. Every tile. Click for the full image.
Gaston Luga · Naver-led organic + influencer system. Korea: brand's #2 foreign market.
The thesis: a brand system tight enough to localize without losing identity.
Wordmark, mark, and clear usage rules — the contract between brand and partner.
Palette and type rules — the pieces influencers and local partners need to stay on-brand.
Filled and outlined variants — modular, recombinable, ready for any market.
The system applied to a marketing landing page — the surface where localization shows.
Client portal — proving the brand holds up in a working product UI.
Business card, invoice, and ad executions — the tactile proof of brand consistency.
Personas built from interviews — the same method I use to map Korean buyer behavior.
Mapping the journey before drawing the screen — the discipline behind any localized funnel.
Mobile + tablet flow. Where research meets pixel-level craft.
Early Seoul years — landing pages, holiday packages, Alitalia co-branded creative for Korean travelers.
WHAT I DO
Four capabilities. One market. Proven at scale.
Identifying, briefing, and managing Korean voices on Naver Blog, Instagram, and YouTube. Building the system — not just finding names — so influence converts to measurable acquisition.
Korea's search engine is Naver. I build the blog content, keyword, and SEO strategy that wins on the platform Korean buyers actually use — not a Google playbook transliterated into Korean.
Brand guidelines, campaign copy, and creative adapted from English into Korean. The soul of the brand stays intact. The execution fits the market, the platform, and the cultural context.
Naver paid search, social ads, seasonal landing pages, banner systems, and email. Built for conversion. Measured. Iterated. Not built for awards.
ABOUT
I'm Ginny (Cheon Eojin). I spent four years building Gaston Luga's Korean market from zero. I designed the Naver organic strategy, built the influencer system, wrote the localized creative guides, and recruited and led the Korean team. In under a year, Korea was their #2 foreign market by revenue. That is the work I do.
My path runs through both cities. I studied Design and Art at Shingu University in Seoul and started my career designing landing pages, product pages, and campaign creative for CJ Corporation, 11st Street, and Mode Tour — including, by coincidence, work for a Swedish accessories brand years before I had ever set foot in Sweden. A move to the Baltics led me into tour management for Korean travelers across the Nordics, and eventually to Stockholm.
After Gaston Luga, I completed a BA Design Lead at Hyper Island, deepening my UX research, UI design, and brand systems practice. Today I work at the intersection of brand identity, performance marketing, and cultural translation — bilingual in English and Korean, and fluent in the gap between them.
LET'S TALK
I take a small number of consulting briefs from European brands entering the Korean market — influencer systems, Naver strategy, creative localization, campaign build. I am also open to senior marketing or brand roles in Stockholm. Let's talk about what you are building.
Stockholm, Sweden · Ginny (Cheon Eojin)