My Motivation to Continue My Business Studies at Cornell University

In my master’s thesis, I focused on ‘trading-up’ — which refers to the consumption behavior of purchasing goods at a price premium if it resonates with the consumer’s values — which was never before researched in Korea. I initially defined trading-up to be a type of luxury consumption because they both had high-priced consumption in common. In prior research, luxury consumption typically led to dissatisfaction, whereas in my research, trading-up led to satisfaction and significantly increased perceived consumer effectiveness. The implication was that the increased satisfaction stemmed from the purchase reflecting consumers’ values, unlike with luxury consumption, which is characterized by conspicuous consumption and conformity. Throughout my research of varying topics as a graduate student, I experienced that the individual’s choice and values affect the level of consumer well-being, and became motivated to further investigate.

After earning my master’s degree, I joined Gallup Korea with the goal of experiencing the practical applications of theoretical research. During my two and a half years as a research analyst at Gallup, my primary role has been analyzing consumer behavior, consumers’ standard of choosing products and brands, based on quantitative and qualitative data. Gallup, as the first research organization in Korea, holds more trustworthy data than any other entity in Korea. In the process of conducting more than fifty independent projects, making surveys, cleaning data, analyzing data, and writing reports, I developed the ability to discern meaningful data from the bad to extract insights. In addition, I greatly improved my capability to articulate ideas and communicate effectively with people from different roles and organizations.

Calculating the Brand Power Index (BPI) of SK telecom, the largest telecommunication company in Korea, was one of the most memorable projects I have conducted at Gallup. The objective of this project was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of SK telecom and incorporate the collected data into building successful branding strategies. After tracking ten years worth of data to find why SK telecom’s BPI had decreased since 2015, I discovered that, unlike in the past, emotional engagement with products have a greater impact on brand power assessment than the quality of products do. SK telecom utilized my conclusions to develop original branding strategies successfully appealing to emotion, such as the ‘0 campaign’, a travel campaign targeting 19-24 year old consumers. As a direct result, SK telecom’s BPI increased this year, and ranks first place in the market. In my collaborations with numerous corporations, I reconfirmed that today’s companies are increasingly trying to understand the needs and values of consumers as well as revise business strategies to cater to consumers. This enabled me to consolidate my research interest in consumer well-being.

Despite the tremendous learning experience, I found my role at Gallup Korea to be limiting at times, as I was only able to conduct projects and provide implications based on the needs of clients. This gave confidence to my decision to commit myself to academia and further explore my interest in consumer behaviour. I strongly believe that by applying my work experience to research, I would be able to provide valuable input to consumers and corporations alike, contributing to the greater well-being of consumers, and providing meaningful insights to corporations.

I am applying to SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University because its research in decision making and consumer well-being align with my own. Specifically, I believe working with Professor Kaitlin Woolle would deepen my understanding of decision making as well as broaden and enrich my research. I was fascinated by the refreshing approach in her study on the relationship between similar food consumption and trust. I also am interested in Professor Stijn M.J. van Osselaer’s recent work which addressed the relationship between self-esteem and switching responses to poor service. In addition, I am excited at the prospect of engaging with experts to discuss how to make pragmatic contributions to industry and business through Cornell’s External Relations programs. I firmly believe that I would be able to expand my knowledge and broaden my exposure to topic beyond my current interests and contribute to research at Cornell University.