As global interest in Korean culture intensifies, MU:DS, the cultural merchandise line of Korea's national museums, has been drawing growing attention as well.
Kim Mi-kyung, head of the merchandise business division at the National Museum Foundation of Korea and the driving force behind the MU:DS hit, has published "Today's Sensibility" (Munhakdongne), a candid account of her thinking on marketing, branding and product planning. In an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily, Kim described the origins of MU:DS: "I wanted to properly express the identity of these products as something that starts from our cultural heritage held by the national museums, while at the same time collaborating with companies and brands outside the museum to show just how appealing our artifacts are as content." She stressed that "the most powerful competitive edge an artifact has is time. The very fact that it has endured for centuries or millennia and survived beyond its era and its fashions is already an enormous strength."
Kim built a substantial career in the food and beverage industry, establishing "Achim Haetsal" and "Chorok Maesil" as national beverage brands at Woongjin Foods and planning the menus and services for "Mix & Bake" and "Seven Springs" at Samyang Group, before joining the National Museum Foundation of Korea in 2016.
"What matters is not the question of what to make out of an artifact, but what you saw in it," she said. "Only when you have truly found that can you translate it into a product that people today will connect with." Some artifacts call for even greater caution. She cited "Sehando," a celebrated ink painting donated by the late Son Chang-keun after long hesitation. "Just as the collector needed a long time before he could let the work go, turning it into a product also requires enough time," Kim said. "A product planner cannot make that judgment alone, so we listen to curators about the work's story and historical context, and we have to keep studying."
How far should you change something, and where should you stop? The "Bangasayusang Miniature Heart Series," created last year to mark the 20th anniversary of the National Museum of Korea's Yongsan opening, was a test case. The contemplative bodhisattva let go of its meditative pose to form a heart with its fingers or give a thumbs-up in encouragement. Internally, the first reaction was concern. "What we found in the Bangasayusang was not a particular posture but serenity, comfort and the power to make you look inward," she said. "We judged that even if the figure shifted into gestures of love and encouragement, that essence would not be damaged, so we took the plunge and released it." In the book, she calls this boundary the "best line." "The line is not fixed," the author writes. "It can shift little by little depending on the era and people's sensibilities."
Trained in the corporate world and now working at a foundation, she has found her answer between market instinct and public value in authenticity. MU:DS is also changing how younger generations experience museums. "More people now feel that tradition is no longer stuffy or unfashionable, but still beautiful and dignified," she said. "If MU:DS has played even a small part in that change, that would make me truly happy." Her next goal is to take on products of even greater refinement, or new forms of content and experience built on artifacts.
She was also unequivocal in dismissing concerns in some quarters that the Korean culture boom might prove temporary. "What matters is that we keep discovering something new within what is old," Kim said, adding that "'today's sensibility' is less the ability to quickly recognize trends than the ability to notice where people's hearts are turning right now."
Asked her secret for keeping hold of today's sensibility, she said: "MU:DS is a brand that lets you discover something new in something old, every single time. The artifacts are old, but the way we look at them does not have to be. Maybe the secret is not settling for yesterday's sensibility. Out in the field, I keep learning, experiencing and staying curious — and that is where I find the strength to discover what is new."
