How Korean Flavor Became a Brand IP
Session Overview
What happens when a global brand stops treating localization as a simple adaptation exercise and begins turning local culture into something distinctive, repeatable, and ownable?
In Korea, food is more than a product category. It is deeply connected to culture, identity, memory, and shared experience. For global brands, understanding these local signals can create opportunities to build stronger relevance with consumers while developing ideas that go beyond one-off campaigns.
Drawing on McDonald's Korea's experience, this session explores how Korean ingredients, flavors, and cultural insights can be transformed into meaningful brand experiences — and ultimately into brand IP.
HaeYeon Lee will share insights from initiatives including Taste of Korea, along with other major campaigns that have helped McDonald's connect its global brand identity with local Korean culture and consumer expectations.
Localization becomes more powerful when it moves beyond adaptation. The real opportunity is to turn local culture into a distinctive brand asset that consumers can recognize, remember, and connect with.
Speaker
She joined McDonald's Korea in 2012 as an Assistant Brand Manager and has built her career with the company over the past 14 years, progressing through leadership roles including Marketing Team Lead and Marketing Director before being appointed CMO in 2022.
Throughout her career at McDonald's, she has led some of the brand's most recognized campaigns and initiatives in Korea, including the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics campaign, the global BTS Meal, and Taste of Korea.
Through these initiatives, she has helped connect McDonald's global brand equity with Korean culture and local consumer insights, creating campaigns and menu experiences that feel locally relevant while remaining unmistakably McDonald's.
Her work spans brand strategy, digital marketing, menu innovation, cultural localization, and consumer experience, with a focus on building stronger and more meaningful connections between global brands and Korean consumers.
And when it comes to the McDonald's menu, her personal favorite is the Double Cheeseburger.