Domestic F&B Character 'Mildang' Challenges Global Market Through Animation

Juntae Jeong, CEO of Majeldifine

'Mil-dang' Animation Promotional Image

The wave of domestic characters continues from Pororo to Kakao Friends, Baby Shark, and Pengsoo. According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, the domestic character industry’s sales reached an estimated 13.0165 trillion KRW in 2019, a 6.6% increase from the previous year, while character exports grew by 10.7% to an estimated 824.93 million USD in 2019.

In line with the growth of the character industry, Majeldipine (CEO Jung Joon-tae), which has received positive responses domestically with its own F&B character ‘Mildang,’ announced its challenge to the global market through animation.

Founded in February 2018 as a character-specialized content company, Majeldipine has been promoting various business developments utilizing its own character IP. In particular, ‘Mildang,’ Majeldipine’s representative character inspired by wheat dough, has gained popularity with its white, round, and chewy image, collaborating with major domestic and international companies such as CGV, Hyundai Department Store, Lotte Mall, White Jinro, and China’s ‘Hotcake’ in various projects.

"Animation requires large capital, making it difficult for small content companies to enter, but ‘Mildang’ transitioning from a 2D character to 3D animation to establish a foothold for global growth was a necessary challenge for Majeldipine."

CEO Jung Joon-tae of Majeldipine spoke about the many difficulties in producing original characters into animation and introduced that this challenge was made possible through the Korea Creative Content Agency’s support program for domestic animation. Majeldipine is also a resident company at the Korea Creative Content Agency’s CKL Enterprise Support Center.

The ‘Mildang’ animation is planned to be produced as a total of about 130 web animation episodes, with a teaser and the early episodes introducing the features of the work to be produced and released by the end of this year.

To target the global market, the animation will be produced without dialogue. Chinese OTT company iQIYI and Canadian media product company WildBrain have shown interest, and overseas distributors such as Hong Kong’s Intelligent Production Office Limited are already in contract negotiations, showing high interest.

Alongside the animation production, Majeldipine plans to aggressively promote the ‘Mildang’ character by preparing a variety of character merchandise. Products such as tissue paper featuring the ‘Mildang’ character will be registered and sold on Amazon through local U.S. companies, and a mobile game is also under development, aiming for release early next year.

CEO Jung Joon-tae expressed his ambition, saying, “My dream is to continuously create characters with diverse personalities and grow into a global content company utilizing these character IPs,” adding, “Our immediate goal is to establish ‘Mildang’ as a representative domestic F&B character.”