Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: YoeGin Chang, SK-II

YoeGin Chang

Senior brand director, global
SK-II
Singapore
New member

SK-II is behind some of the most exciting pieces of work we’ve seen of late including a mammoth animation anthology project featuring Olympians facing their own demons, or ‘kaijus’. The work was produced by SK-II Studio, just one of many marketing innovations that YoeGin Chang helped to develop to stand out from the crop of skincare labels that target women in Asia.

Having grown up in Korea, Chang tells Campaign she was often surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards, and was herself beaten down by mean comments about her “round face” in her younger years. Her adolescent experiences initially made her feel uncomfortable working for SK-II, as she was worried about playing a part in reinforcing restrictive beauty ideals. But it didn’t take her long to realise that she needed to tackle these issues at hand in order to humanise the brand. This was a chance, as they say, to change from within. 

In fact, her personal experience is one of the things that has led to SK-II’s most expansive campaign so far: #ChangeDestiny. It’s a simple purpose-driven idea, and one that is not necessarily new. But in her 13 years working with the P&G brand, Chang has managed to fine-tune the long-running campaign with the aid of highly local and relatable storytelling paired with rich production values. In essence, she’s managed to fuse old-fashioned marketing traits with progressive, relevant content. 

And while the pandemic may have hurt the brand’s revenue in 2020, Chang is optimistic that sticking to a clearly defined purpose is the way to go. In an interview with Campaign earlier this year, she said: “There are different attributes that we want to really win, [but most importantly] we want to achieve mutual trust between our audience and the brand.”