Sejung Group CEO Park Yi-ra runs Yira Week on YouTube. Screenshot from YouTube
Chae Moon-sun, CEO of vegan beauty startup Talitha Koum, updates her YouTube channel regularly to promote her company. Courtesy of Talitha Koum
Chaebol family heiresses are making waves on YouTube by launching channels that share unfiltered opinions and insights into their private lives. This fresh approach sets them apart from their predecessors, helping them forge closer connections with followers and promote their companies.
The personalities are mostly active in the fields of beauty and fashion. The online outlets have become their platforms to draw attention using their thoughts and activities during both private and professional hours as well as social lives.
Park Yi-ra, who runs the fashion, beauty and lifestyle channel Yira Week, is the CEO of Sejung Group which operates fashion labels Olivia Lauren, Wellmade and Indian as well as jewelry brand Didier Dubot. She is the youngest daughter of the conglomerate's founder Park Soon-ho.
The 46-year-old has been promoting the conglomerate through her outlet, raising public awareness of not just what the company sells but also what it does outside its stores. One of the clips shows Park participating in the company's community outreach project renovating low-cost residential spaces. Sejung has been undertaking the corporate social responsibility initiative since 2008.
Launching the channel in March, Park has been sharing fashion and style tips, ongoing fashion and lifestyle trends and interviews with other business leaders and friends. Some clips show her visiting her company's offline stores.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Sejung's foundation. In July, the group held a ceremony and announced a plan to expand its business beyond fashion to the lifestyle sector, which Park has been personally promoting on YouTube.
Chae Moon-sun, CEO of vegan beauty startup Talitha Koum, started uploading a video series last month to share her personal life with over 13,600 subscribers to the brand's YouTube channel. She is in the third generation of the owner family of Aekyung Group, which operates subsidiaries in household items, chemicals and logistics, as well as the low-cost carrier Jeju Air. Her grandfather founded the conglomerate and her father is the executive vice chairman.
“It's been five years since Talitha Koum was launched but it seems not many people know about it,” Chae, 38, said on her channel. She launched the company in 2019. “So I wanted to introduce the brand and also show how I live my life.”
Ham Yon-ji wielded popularity on her YouTube channel until she declared in December she will take a hiatus. Screen capture from Instagram
A fan of table tennis, she uploaded a clip in which she met Shin Yu-bin, the country's national athlete and the brand ambassador of Talitha Koum.
Outdoor wear maker Youngone, fashion companies Hansae Yes24 Holdings and Hyungji have also seen the daughters of their chief executives roll up their sleeves to support the operations. So have Shinsegae, Kolmar Korea and Tonymoly in the beauty industry.
Outside the fashion and beauty industry, Ham Yon-ji, a third-generation member of major food company Ottogi's owner family, attracted over 444,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel until she stopped the activity last December. As a musical actress, she had been communicating with her fans through the platform since 2019.
Her channel was distanced from the company as it mostly showed personal moments from her life, including her wedding in the United States and meeting with her father Ham Young-joon, the company's second chairman.
The halt of her YouTube channel triggered speculation that she had become involved in Ottogi's operations, starting as an employee at Ottogi America's marketing division.