Interview with the PR and marketing of @KakaotalkPH

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Here’s my interview with Noah Hwang, the PR and marketing for Kakao Talk in the Philippines. I interviewed him after I arrived at the media launch of Kakao Talk in Makati City. Big news here.. bec. Kakao Talk just dominated the number 1 spot in App Store and Google Play last Aug 7, 2013.

Kakao Talk is a mobile messaging app that lets you send message and call friends for free via use of mobile internet or with wifi.

ME: Hi Noah, what is your role in Kakao Talk?

Noah: My name is Noah Hwang, I'm in charge for PR and marketing of Kakao Talk here in the Philippines.

Me: Are you a Filipino ??

Noah: I'm Korean

Me: Ohhh Korean.. I thought you're pinoy, you look like a pinoy.

Noah: thank you! thank you haha

Me: how do you introduce this app to us Filipinos? you know that we love to chat and thanks for all those apps and Facebook being available.

Noah: You know that Kakaotalk is the number 1 messenger in Korea and we dominated the Korea market, I think the very similar with the Koreans and the Filipinos is that they like to chat with each other, that's why Korean market love Kakaotalk, because we have lots of features and being the first mover in the market, that's why we love to introduce this lovely system to the PH market, Because. we have a nice infrastructure, we have a nice service, we have a nice and attractive background, so that's why we want to introduce this very good app to Filipinos. We launched last March 2010 and it was downloaded by many even before it was launch in the Philippine market.

We came here in the Ph market bec. we really want to focus to localize the app and to give more services that is needed to the local Filipinos, that's why we came here in the PH market.

I just installed Kakao Talk in my Iphone4s

Me: How many users do you have in Korea? the world ?

Noah: We have 100 million registered users in 230 countries, The real good thing is that when you use the Kakao Talk, its a very good instant messenger, you can express your feeling by the message, if you use just sms and mms, its hard to express feeling to your friends, here in Kakao Talk, we have those animated emoticons, digital items to share, and its easy to express your feelings to your friends and have a good chat with them.

ME: is this a kid friendly app ?

Noah: yes it is.

ME: is there a game in the app? or just used for communication

Noah: we have game app platform inside, you can just download the game and play with your Kakao friends, you can compete with your friends via the game board, this is social graph games.

ME: What is Kakao ?? what's the meaning of it?

Noah: Kakao means... you know the fruit of the Cacao fruit?

Me: yes the seed that becomes chocolate ???

Noah: yes..

Me: ahhhhh

Noah: Kakao word comes from that cacao tree, it means sweet and fruitful

After installing, I created a group chat with everyone hahaha

Me: How many pinoys already registered?

Noah: We just started focusing in the PH market, we dont have yet an idea but as I mentioned before we ranked 1st top app last night in the PH, we are growing fast and I hope it will grow more.

Me: Kakao Talk got an endorser already, you have Sarah Geronimo, what can you say about her impact as the endorser

Noah: I haven't met her yet, but I heard she's the most famous and talented star here in the PH, Kakao Talk’s message is for the young and active image and I think Sarah matches with the image that’s why we chose her.

So that’s the end of my interview, its just a short chat with Noah Hwang, I arrived late at the event and I blame for the wrong calendar plot in my phone haaha. I just discovered the correct date an hour before the start of the event. But I’m glad that I still made it to the venue.

Above is my Kakao Talk chat board hahaha, you’ll see who I chat with.

The fun here in Kakao Talk is the animated emoticons and the 3 way-group calls

My Kakao Talk friends in the flesh hahaha! – www.digitista.blogspot.com, www.allchuckedup.com and www.lifestylebucket.com

Tim Jang, KakaoTalk’s Philippines Director

“We are overwhelmed by the support of the Filipino users. We are very optimistic that our application will keep growing and we are determined to become an integral part of the local ecosystem and how Filipinos interact, We are working on creating localized stickers and content that are more appealing and relatable to Filipino users.

Apart from offering free messages and calls, KakaoTalk has more fun features that we have yet to introduce to Filipinos. By listening to our users, we can customize the application’s features based on their wants and needs. We look forward to launching them here in the future.”