Going for a song

A Canadian tobacco manufacturer established by ethnic Koreans plans to launch a cigarette named Gangnam, following Psy’s global hit, ‘Gangnam Style’, according to a story in The Korea Times.

Gangnam is the area south of the Han River that is now an affluent district of Seoul.
Canada Tobacco & Global (CT&G), set up by 38 Korean Canadians in Ontario last year, said on Wednesday that it would launch three new brands on February 15 – Gangnam, C38 and Midas.
“We had initially planned to name one of our new products ‘daebak’, a Korean word for jackpot,” CT&G CEO, Kang Chul-joong, was quoted as telling Yonhap News.

“But in order to capitalize on the global popularity of Gangnam Style we decided to name the cigarette after the song,” he added.

“We really hope our Gangnam cigarettes will be as successful as Psy’s song and let more foreigners know about Korea.’’
The company will first market the cigarette in Ontario, but next year it will go on sale in British   Columbia and other provinces.

The plan is then to ship the cigarette to China, Southeast Asia and South America, where Gangnam Style is said to be immensely popular.

The 38 Korean Canadians behind the venture run convenience stores in Ontario. They decided to establish a tobacco company in protest at the sales policies of British American Tobacco’s Imperial Tobacco Canada, which, they said, marginalized small vendors.

“We had initially tried to establish Korean Tobacco Import & Wholesale to import products from KT&G and sell them in Canada,” said Kang. “But we had difficulties in bringing Korean cigarettes into the country. So, we decided to set up CT&G.”