 Ted (Tae Young) Chung
President & CEO Hyundai Card Seoul, Korea
When addressing the recent AdAsia conference in Jeju, Korea, Ted Chung surprised the audience with his candor. He told them that when he joined Hyundai Card in 2003, he inherited a USD $16 billion loss due to the Korean credit crisis. And he could not honestly understand why anyone needed another credit card. Most people had four or five already, and Hyundai was the smallest and last player in the market.
Credit cards were not Ted Chung’s usual milieu. He majored in French Literature at Seoul National University, received at MBA at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and started his career at Norton Industrial Ceramics, in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA). He moved to Hyundai Group a year later, and accumulated extensive experience and knowledge in various fields as the director in international trading of Hyundai Corporation in Seoul and as the director of Hyundai Mobis in Tokyo and SanFrancisco. He also spent more time in North America as the president of the U.S. and Mexico subsidiaries of Hyundai Mobis. He returned to Korea in 2000, to become the executive vice president of Strategy and Financing at Hyundai Mobis, then moved to the Joint Procurement Division of Hyundai/Kia Motors.
Nonetheless, when Chung started at Hyundai Card he conducted some basic research, and learned that consumers found little brand differentiation among credit cards. Ninety percent utilized the card for quick cash lending — whether debit or credit. Most perceived a credit card as a service product, not as a financial product. The results got him thinking.
He came up with a premise that he calls “science in a Tiffany box.” Chung understood that consumers make a connection between certain quality brands and desirability. For example, they connect chocolate and Godiva, coffee and Starbuck’s, MP3 Players and the Apple iPod, Hotels and W. He also came to understand that these brands operate independently of pricing, awareness levels, brand portfolios or sales strategies. It is immediately apparent that these brands are simply “cool,” and they can communicate their brand offering in just 10 seconds.In many cases, design is crucial to brand image and brand values.
According to Chung, some would call this “cult marketing.” He saw it as a way to make the same cool and desirable association with credit cards and the Hyundai card. With a design team, he created sleek differentiated card products geared toward different consumer segments — the young, the affluent, the chic. Their top-of-line black card came with a $1000 fee… and a year’s waiting list. Ted Chung made new Hyundai credit cards a must-have item.
In four years, Hyundai has gone from 3% to 13% market share, does USD $40 million in transactions, has made USD $800,000 in profit — a vast change from that USD $16billion loss. Now under Chung’s leadership as CEO of both Hyundai Card and Hyundai Capital, Hyundai Card is Korea’s fastest growing credit card company and has been awarded as the most admired credit card company in Korea. As a result, Hyundai Capital has 76% market share in Korea’s Auto financing industry. The combined assets of both companies is now USD $19 billion. Contact: kssem@hyundaicapital.com
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