Cheil to steer digital business toward metaverse offerings

Cheil Worldwide has signalled its intention to ramp up metaverse-related offerings in a substantial way within its digital business. In a presentation to securities analysts in Seoul on Thursday, Cheil shared its digital transformation results and announced its new business direction for the metaverse.

The South Korean-based global agency said its digital marketing business formed 50% of its full-year revenue driven by performance marketing. Cheil told analysts it would continue to accelerate its digital transformation services by strengthening data and tech capabilities while continuing to focus on performance-driven marketing activities that increase sales and work-efficiency for clients. 

President and CEO Jeongkeun Yoo told financial analysts that its digital transformation offerings would be accelerated and geared toward 'meta-formation' to help take brands take advantage of Web3 opportunities.  While Cheil set up a dedicated metaverse business last year, Yoo says the company will ramp up its metaverse-oriented content production capabilities through new partnerships and investments in metaverse-related companies.

“Change in advertising industry with the advent of new technology including metaverse and NFT is an opportunity for Cheil Worldwide to broaden our field of business," Yoo told analysts. "We look forward to leading an enormous change in the industry on a whole other level through meta-formation that transcends globalization and digitalization.” 

Sangwoo Hong, vice president of Cheil's digital tech division then went on to identify four key areas of focus for its metaverse-related businesses: virtual production, digital human services, virtual space-based metaverse platforms and NFT commercialisation. Hong said Cheil is actively looking to make investments in metaverse and digital content companies in these areas. 

Taihai Kim, head of Cheil's Digital X business and CFO Honggu Jung also attended the briefing session, aimed at better communicating with the financial community and boosting its corporate value. 

Cheil Worldwide, which operates under the Samsung Group, has been a separate publicly-traded company since 1988, listed on South Korea's KOSPI index. Like the shares of its major holding company rivals, Cheil stock has spent the past two years recovering from initial pandemic-related losses in 2020. 

Source: Google Finance