Creator of "Pucca", Vooz testing “Pucca Racing.” Co-developed with Gravity

To top it off, this month the company is publicly testing “Pucca Racing.” Co-developed with Gravity, the maker of Ragnarok, an online game enjoyed by over 40 million users worldwide, “ Pucca Racing ” has Pucca racing all over the world, stopping by all the famous places like the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower of France, and the Parthenon of Greece. I’m excited to say that buyers are already placing orders.

“We have been developing new characters – Canimals and Myo & Ga. The Canimal, named so because the toy is placed in a can, targets the two-to-six age group. Myo & Ga, meaning the hare and the turtle, is aimed at the 8-through-12 year-old set.

As for Pucca, we are now trying to upgrade her into a new character business model. The US and Japan accounts for 40% of the world’s character market, which is why we want to take a stab at these markets to grow as a truly global character developer.”

Vooz is knocking on the door to the global market with Canimals and Myo&Ga, and attempting to overtake American and Japanese character developers in their own backyard. Vooz has proven through Pucca that Korean-made characters can appeal to world customers.

Vooz, a multiplatform character creation company, comes up with characters for animation, games, merchandising and many more areas. Its biggest hit has been Pucca, introduced as a character for a flash animated e-greeting card in 2000. Pucca is the only daughter of a Chinese restaurant owner. Characterized by two large black hair buns on the sides of her head, slanted eyes, and a red Chinese costume, Pucca is a mischievous girl, looking for adventure and romance with her first love, Garu, the descendent of a ninja.

This cute, energetic character has captivated many internet users, so much so that 800-thousand Pucca e-cards were sent in just the two months after her debut. The following year, Pucca made it into the offline market. This rambunctious girl graced over 500 different products -- everything from dolls to bags and clothes. She also won the grand prize at the prestigious Korea Character Awards for three years straight. Now that Pucca has become the most well-known character in Korea, she has branched out to Europe and the Middle East as a mobile phone character.

Here’s Mr. Lee Jae-kwang, head of the marketing team at Vooz, to talk about exporting Pucca.

“Vooz has been developing mobile content based on Pucca since the year 2000, and has steadily provided it to SK Telecom, KTF, and LG Telecom. We have been developing a variety of business models with overseas mobile service providers since 2003.

In particular, an animation program starring Pucca started airing on British and European TV stations in 2006. This serves as a really big marketing point, as we look for partners in the mobile, publishing, online, and console game industries.

As a matter of fact, Arena Mobile, which owns the largest mobile content distribution network in Europe, has had its eye on us for the past three years and this year the president of Arena Mobile personally came to the Global Mobile Content Awards in Korea to sign a contract with us.”

So Vooz has signed a contract to supply content to Europe’s largest mobile content distributor, Arena Mobile. The contract will give Vooz royalties revenue amounting to 150 million won from Spain and the Middle East.

But more important than such monetary gains is the part this contract will play in expanding its business. It’s understandable, as Vooz has sold roughly three thousand different types of products in 130 nations since venturing out into overseas markets in 2002.

The company has partnered with top-rated companies like Walt Disney and Warner Brothers, earning 95% of its revenue from foreign markets. Pucca is leading the worldwide surge of Korean-developed characters. What is the secret to this remarkable success?

“Pucca is a character born out of careful market and consumer research. Vooz has gained enough experience in character operations to set up a digitalized and systematic management scheme for each character. We also try to meet consumer demands and keep up with market changes by distributing new manuals twice a year.

I believe Pucca was able to appeal to the European or American markets by playing up her Oriental features. Her strong, vivid colors stood out against the pastel-colored characters in the markets of the West.”

Pucca is the child of meticulous marketing strategy. Tailored to meet market demands, Pucca succeeded in making a strong impression on consumers from early on. Vooz constantly upgrades Pucca, releasing a Christmas version, a Hansel and Gretel version, and the Hangeul, or Korean alphabet, version of Pucca.

This is how this plucky daughter of a Chinese restaurant owner has become such a long-running character. Breaking the notion that character products should be in pastel colors like pink or sky blue, Pucca’s main color is vivid red, which has brought about a strong market reaction. Emboldened by the overseas success of Pucca, Vooz has ventured into new territory this year to broaden its customer base.

“Vooz is a multimedia content developer and Korea has more than enough resources for the online game content industry. We thought it would be profitable for Vooz to jump into the online game content industry, so we developed a game with Gravity, the maker of Ragnarok Online. The second beta service was finished last week and a public pilot run will launch in July. You will probably be able to see the game in the Chinese, Taiwanese, and European markets by early next year.”

Getting its start in character development for children’s stationery, Vooz has expanded its expertise to include animation, mobile content, publishing, children’s books, and quiz programs.