Article at a Glance

Gangnam Unnie succeeded in building South Korea’s largest cosmetic medical advertising platform by tackling information asymmetry issues in the non-covered medical market, and the secrets behind its success are as follows.

1. The company persuaded hospitals to transparently provide various procedure-related information, led by pricing, while considering consumer interest priorities.

2. The company managed customer reviews for app-connected procedures through comprehensive happy call surveys and operated chatroom-like communities to encourage active customer participation in information sharing.

3. The company strengthened screening of potentially illegal medical advertisements and enhanced fake review monitoring, leading hospitals and consumers to build mutual trust.

4. Through diversification via overseas expansion and solution businesses, the company expanded the platform’s reach and enhanced business sustainability.

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Intern Researcher Woo Ji-yeon, and Oh Eun-seo participated in the Korean-English translation and proofreading of this article.

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The app “Gangnam Unnie” is South Korea’s largest1 1Based on the number of partner hospitals. 닫기  cosmetic medical information platform providing medical information related to dermatological and plastic surgery procedures. For a long time, cosmetic medicine has been a non-covered area where procedure prices vary drastically, and consumers faced major concerns due to the difficulty of finding publicly available information. The best option was selecting hospitals through personal connections, relying on acquaintances’ recommendations like “I heard this hospital is good.” It was difficult to obtain information in advance about specific procedure details, what medications were used, or whether prices were reasonable. After receiving various procedures recommended by hospital consultation managers, patients often felt uneasy, as if they had been unfairly charged.

Gangnam Unnie, which tackled these consumer concerns, launched in 2015 and has grown into South Korea’s largest specialized cosmetic medical advertising platform with 4.8 million individual members and 1,500 plastic surgery and dermatology clinics in Korea and 1,100 in Japan as of April 2023. After entering Japan in 2020, the platform attracted approximately 1,000 hospital members and became the No. 1 platform in Japan’s cosmetic medical industry as well. In 2022, it recorded 24.5 billion won in revenue.

The Gangnam Unnie app, which started as an advertising platform, is now developing into a community where doctors and patients communicate freely. In the app, consumers can grasp at a glance various information they want, from specific factual information like procedure prices, processes, and equipment used by each hospital, to subjective value information like ratings and satisfaction levels for hospitals and doctors. In particular, vivid reviews written by members who directly underwent procedures are adding credibility to advertising information posted by hospitals. On Gangnam Unnie, more than 1,000 posts featuring honest evaluation content along with before-and-after procedure photos and hospital payment receipts are uploaded daily. Members exchange comments with each other to share information about hospitals and procedures, and doctors from hospitals that posted advertisements on the app also directly leave comments to actively answer members’ questions.

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