Kakao’s New Opportunities

Pony Brown emoticons encapsulate everyday emotions so that users can express themselves more accurately to their friends and loved ones.
Pony Brown emoticons encapsulate everyday emotions so that users can express themselves more accurately to their friends and loved ones.

 

Even though KakaoTalk owes much of its success to its affiliated game companies, they also have created an ecosystem in which many other companies, designers, and artists can benefit by selling their products directly to consumers. Kakaotalk’s original success as a messenger service partly came from their addictive emoticons which gained viral popularity among users of all ages. BusinessKorea interviewed Oh Se-jong, one of the artists who provides emoticons through the Kakao Item Store, and asked him about his experience working with the company.

What motivated you to become a character designer? What is your background?

Oh Se-jong and and his feline friend hard at work creating emoticons and characters.​I liked drawing characters or scribbling even when I was young. I am a little timid and I have been shy since I was young. So, I preferred to express myself by doodling or drawing pictures instead of talking.

Up until 2000, I studied 3D animation, and luckily, I launched the character brand Pony Brown in 2007. We design, manufacture, and sell stationery and other small items. We also actively operate a licensing business in musical instruments, beddings, foods and underwear, by applying the characters in collaboration.

How did you get to work with Kakao, and how has it been working out so far?

I always enjoyed using KakaoTalk messages. When I was using KakaoTalk emoticons, I thought it would be fun to create moving emoticons using my characters and made the suggestion to KakaoTalk. Fortunately, my suggestion was accepted and now many people love Pony Brown character emoticons. Some say that through Kakao emoticons they got to know Pony Brown, so I hope the Kakao emoticon service will serve as a channel to promote my characters.

What are the pros and cons of creating/providing emoticons from a character designer’s standpoint?

What I like about my job is that Kakao emoticons can move, unlike my characters on stationery items, so it is really fun to work on my character emoticons.

Also, it really makes me happy when people around me use my emoticons often and have fun with them.

A difficult part is that when I work on my emoticons, I get greedier and try to make them more fun and useful for users. For example, I try to incorporate popular slang or awesome gestures to make them more fun, but I need to maintain Pony Brown’s identity, so it is hard.

How are your characters or design styles different from others? Is there any theme or concept that you pursue?

I would like to share my look at the world and share the warmth that I feel when I look at the world. This is important when I commercialize my characters.

I wanted to share and communicate with cuter, prettier and more special things. At first, I targeted people in their 20s and 30s, so I intended to contain stories that 20-somethings or 30-somethings could relate to.

Pony Brown characters are set in fable-like stories where everyday life and usual stories are entailed. They are not all realistic, but I wanted them to be like a fairy tale for adults and to contain small and innocent stories. Now we are adults, but all of us once had carefree and innocent childhood days.

I think users found this kind of sentiment and communicated it with each other.

Who are the most frequent emoticon users?

Kakao offers a wide range of emoticons with different concepts depending on the user age and targets.

My character emoticons are made with people in their 20s and 30s in mind, but users tend to be diverse, like from teens to people in 30s. However, teenagers tend to buy the most because, in my opinion, they especially like to express themselves.

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution