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From 2022 and into 2023, Lion Corporation (Korea) (“LCK”) ran a campaign offering two-packs of KODOMO Reliable Jelly Toothbrushes to first-time customers of baby food for children aged 0 to 2. These customers also receive coupons they can use for future purchases of these toothbrushes. For families starting weaning, children learning to brush their teeth on their own with parents supervising and finishing up the job are very important habits to form. With the aim of establishing the habit of tooth brushing from an early age, in 2023, 3,500 people per month-for a total of 42,000 people participated in this activity.
In 2023, LCK partnered with Playtime, South Korea’s No. 1 local kids cafe, to provide 9,200 children aged 3 to 7 who visited Playtime facilities with a KODOMO Toothbrush. This activity was aimed at reducing children’s reluctance toward tooth brushing and informing them about the importance of oral care. A KODOMO Toothbrush commercial also played inside Playtime to increase brand recognition.
In cooperation with Seodaemun-gu Health Center and the Department of Preventive Dentistry and Public Oral Health at Yonsei University College of Dentistry, LCK has set up tooth brushing facilities that provide dental checkups and instruction on proper oral care at educational institutions, where education on tooth brushing has been provided since 2014.
LCK has set up tooth brushing facilities targeted toward elementary school students from first to sixth grades within Seoul’s Seodaemun District. At these facilities, dentists and dental hygienists provide ongoing oral care education and monitoring. Dental examinations are conducted twice a year for four years with follow-ups as needed. In order to ensure the children develop proper oral care habits, dental hygienists visit nursery schools, elementary schools and welfare facilities to educate them on such habits as brushing their teeth after meals as well as on correct preventive dentistry.
In 2023, 12 elementary schools participated with approximately 9,632 students receiving instruction on oral care, bringing the cumulative total number of students served to 71,009.
The Lion Group places emphasis on fostering children’s awareness of dental and oral health in order to help them stay healthy for a lifetime. Aiming to teach correct oral care to elementary school students, the Lion Group has held the Oral Health Event of Tooth Brushing for Children since 1932. Currently, the event is held annually in Asia.
LCK has held the Oral Health Event of Tooth Brushing for Children since 2009. In May 2023, 85 students—50 fourth grade students from a Japanese school in Seoul and 35 fourth to sixth grade students from a Japanese school in Busan—participated in the event. In total, 8,288 children have participated in this event since 2009.
In April and May 2021, LCK provided sets of its Kids safe toothbrushes and toothpaste for 5,300 first-graders in elementary school with the aim of developing proper oral care habits to maintain their health. The sets were provided through Teacher Mall, a specialized online mall where teachers at registered schools purchase teaching supplies.
LCK has been contributing to the improvement of local residents’ health care by joining health care programs (promoted by local community organizations such as public healthcare centers, cultural centers and school nurse associations) and conducting health care lectures.
The content of each lecture is tailored to its target audience. Specialists assigned by LCK give lectures on a wide range of health-related topics, such as correct oral care for infants and parents, oral health management, the relationship between oral health and systemic illness, and living habits to prevent infectious diseases.
In 2021, to prevent the spread of the COVID-19, lectures were held twice via Zoom, with approximately 250 people participating, bringing the total number of participants since 2012 to 19,150.
Aiming to increase local residents’ awareness of oral health and preventive dentistry, LCK and Gwangjin-gu Public Health Center have jointly held the Oral Care Consultation Room every Tuesday since 2012. Participants learn to conduct self-checks of their dental and oral conditions and then receive individual professional examinations. Based on these, they receive personal guidance on self-care methods in accordance with their individual dental and oral needs.
A total of approximately 17,000 people, including around 1,790 people in 2019, have taken part in the Oral Care Consultation Room. In 2022, LCK paused this activity due to COVID-19.
LCK held the My Bottle Challenge in support of Global Handwashing Day from August 1 to September 30, 2023. Those who purchased Ai! Kekute* either on Lion Korea Mall or NAVER.com were sent My Bottle Stickers. Lion Korea Mall then uploaded the stickers created by participating children to their official Instagram page. The families who provided the pictures were invited to join in the My Bottle Challenge, NAVER’s live commerce event, where a contest was held to select the best entries based on criteria like affinity with the Ai! Kekute brand, whether it inspired a desire to wash one’s hands, and artistry. The event was held in collaboration with Child Fund Welfare, a children’s charitable foundation, and approximately 600 children enjoyed learning about hand washing.
*Ai! Kekute (literally, Oh! Clean!) is a hand soap brand marketed by LCK.
LCK releases Ai! Kekute limited edition products every year. Through the Miral Welfare Foundation and Goodwill,* people with disabilities are involved throughout the processes of product design, packaging, sales and handling donations related to these products. Proceeds of the donated Ai! Kekute Limited Edition to the Miral Welfare Foundation are used to create jobs for employees at Goodwill and BridgeOn Arte, an organization under the Miral Welfare Foundation that supports artists with developmental disabilities. This initiative is aimed at contributing to the employment and income growth of people with disabilities.
In April 2023, the limited-edition products (Season 4) were launched, and the initiative contributed to the creation of employment for 30 people with disabilities.
* Goodwill is a non-profit organization that provides job training and employment services for people who are socially disadvantaged in their search for work, such as people with disabilities and homeless individuals.
The declining birthrate is a social issue facing South Korea, and municipalities are promoting activities to counter it. Aiming to improve the birthrate, LCK has signed partnership agreements with municipalities and is implementing measures in cooperation with the government. To support the health of newborns, LCK provides a Hygiene Care Set to families who have recently filed birth certificates.
In 2023, LCK expanded this initiative, signing partnership agreements with 56 municipalities. In addition, LCK aims to reduce anxiety about rising health risks in South Korea stemming from environmental pollution, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and provided information on correct hand washing steps to 43,032 households, for a cumulative total of about 609,429 households, along with Ai! Kekute hand soap.
Since 2013, LCK, together with the Ministry of Unification, has offered support for childbearing families in all 56 municipalities across South Korea by providing Ai! Kekute Birth Gift Sets free of charge through the renewal of its social contribution activity, the Yochiyochi Campaign. From 2024, LCK will offer a hygiene product set, which includes Ai! Kekute hand soap and Systema toothpaste and toothbrushes, to pregnant women for whom proper hygiene is especially important due to weakened immunity. The product packaging design was created in collaboration with Arip & Werip, a social enterprise that contributes to job creation for low-income elderly people, adding value to the product. In November 2023, LCK signed a partnership agreement with the City of Seoul and the Community Chest of Korea, to donate hygiene products for expectant mothers.
Through this activity, LCK will contribute to the creation of cleanliness and good hygiene habits for 40,000 expectant mothers per year.
“Let’s Go! Super Healthy Hero” is an online hygiene education project held from May to June 2024 for first and second grade elementary school students who are transitioning from baby teeth to permanent teeth. LCK, Good Neighbors Incheon Headquarter and Seed Co-op (a social cooperative for youth education) collaborated to provide online educational video content and a 30-day Challenge Mission. The campaign website and all educational videos are available in six languages: Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian.
This campaign has gained official approval and support from the Incheon Ministry of Education. Through this activity, about 900 first and second grade students of elementary schools in Incheon will learn proper tooth brushing and hand washing hygiene habits every year.
LCK has established a relationship with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency,* an agency under the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare that was established to protect the health of the public.
In cooperation with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s hand washing campaign and in celebration of Global Handwashing Day on October 15, LCK’s marketing office adhered campaign stickers to five long-selling Ai! Kekute products, which sold approximately 150,000 units between November 2022 and March 2023 through all distribution channels.
* The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need to strengthen the government’s disease control capabilities. Therefore, in 2020, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were raised to agency status as the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
LCK is carrying out a large-scale promotional campaign for Ai! Kekute Premium Moisture in movie theaters operated by CGV, South Korea’s largest movie theater chain.
The campaign features posters and video advertisements in cinema lobbies across the country. Furthermore, theater restrooms are set up with posters, Ai! Kekute products and stickers that provide proper hand washing instructions. In 2023, the theaters saw 56 million visitors.
Health problems arising from poor living environments (such as sick building syndrome and issues caused by house dust) among the elderly and other socially vulnerable people have become a social issue in South Korea. The Korean Government has launched a support project (via the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute affiliated with the Ministry of Environment) to tackle this issue in cooperation with companies, hospitals and municipalities.
LCK has been a supporting member of this project since 2015, distributing daily care products such as dishwashing detergents, laundry detergents and oral care products in areas with significant vulnerable populations.
In 2023, LCK offered support to 1,500 households, and it will continue to support this project with the aim of realizing healthy living environments for everyone.
LCK signed a partnership agreement with Happy Alliance in August 2017 to engage in social contribution activities and promote a sustainable social contribution business model.
In March 2023, LCK provided Happy Boxes to 1,400 children suffering from food insecurity or living in economic conditions that present hygiene difficulties. These Happy Boxes contain Kids safe toothbrushes and toothpaste marketed by LCK and leaflets about cavity prevention, enabling children to practice proper brushing at home.
Moving forward, LCK will continue its partnership with Happy Alliance to contribute to improving children’s quality of life.
* Happy Alliance is a network of enterprises, institutions and individuals that, based on sharing and cooperation, are working to bring about change by proactively addressing social issues.
From September to October 2022, LCK conducted a hand washing awareness campaign coinciding with Global Handwashing Day on October 15, 2022, using the Challengers health management mobile app marketed toward Generation MZ.* During the campaign, 500 Challengers app users were given a mission to wash their hands correctly using LCK’s Ai! Kekute foaming hand soap and authenticate their efforts by uploading photos to Instagram to get the word out about creating healthy living habits. By promoting activities such as this, LCK will fulfill its duty as the number one hand soap company in Korea.
* Generation MZ is a combination of two generations: the “Millennials,” born from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and “Gen Z,” born between the late 1990s and 2010.
In May 2020, LCK signed a basic agreement with the ChildFund Korea, the largest charitable foundation serving underprivileged children in Korea, to jointly pursue the following.
As part of this initiative, LCK has donated a portion of the sales of Ai! Kekute (100 million KRW) to the foundation. The donated funds will be used to cover the sanitation maintenance expenses for sinks and toilets in facilities used by children. The goal of the Colorful Bathroom Campaign is to improve the health of children and the local community as a whole by adding color to the sanitary environment by putting out Ai! Kekute and keeping sink areas clean at all times.
In 2022, the project visited and provided maintenance at a total of 13 local children’s community centers serving 500 children 4 to 16 years old in the Seoul area.
To teach children ways to protect their health, LCK has conducted educational activities on hand washing using Ai! Kekute, a hand soap marketed by LCK. Childhood is the most critical period for establishing good hygiene care habits.
In 2016, LCK conducted Ai! Kekute hand washing classes for kindergarteners aged 4 to 6 in Seoul and nearby cities. These classes involved a bubbly foam-shaped mascot character and a facilitator that captured the children’s attention and encouraged active participation. In 2017, LCK carried out the event at 50 kindergartens, with 6,580 kindergarteners participating.
In 2019, through monthly volunteer programs, LCK taught children at two local community centers as well as four kindergartens attended by children of LCK employees how to wash their hands properly (target age group: 4 to 13 years old, for a total of 300 participants). Through hand washing songs and exercises, children learn that hand washing is not boring, but actually fun.
In April 2023, LCK participated in an environmental cleanup in the Seunggi Stream area hosted by Incheon Metropolitan City Government.
This project involves picking up trash and removing invasive plants from around the Incheon Seunggi Stream to improve the water quality and restore the water ecosystem, contributing to the improvement of nearby residents’ quality of life. 15 LCK employees participated in the activity conducted in collaboration with the Incheon Metropolitan City Government, the Crime Prevention Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, the Incheon Naval Sector Defense Command, Incheon Transit Corporation, the Environmental Corporation of Incheon, CJ CheilJedang and the Incheon Metropolitan City River Revitalization Preparation Group.
LCK is committed to the theme of “One Company, One River, One Company, One Road Building Campaign and Urban Development” and will continue to regularly participate in the West Sea Coastal Cleanup activities.
A small island on the Han River, Nanjido became Seoul’s official landfill in the 1970s. Due to Seoul’s rapid urbanization and economic growth, Nanjido was eventually covered by enormous mountains of garbage. After the landfill site closed down around 1990, the government gave the issue serious consideration and planned the Landfill Recovery Project. The project aims to recover the site, transforming it into “ecological parks.” One of these is Haneul Park, where citizen groups, companies and the government are working together to promote a forest development project aimed at restoring biodiversity. As an environmentally friendly company, LCK has been supporting this project since 2017.
LCK has developed its own forest with the name of Ai! Kekute, where employee volunteers have planted approximately 100 trees. As the young trees reach sufficient size and strength, LCK employees transplant them to the Haneul Park forest.
This activity was conducted by 86 employees and their families in 2019.
To fulfill its corporate social responsibility, LCK, as a hygiene product manufacturer, actively engaged in such social contribution activities as in-kind donations of hygiene products sold by the company.
| Period | November 2023 |
|---|---|
| Outside collaborators | Childcare Center Safety & Insurance Association |
| Donation | Donation of Ai! Kekute hand soap to 30,000 nursery schools across South Korea |
| Details | LCK’s CSR & Communication team, under the ESG & Communication Office, collaborated with the Childcare Center Safety & Insurance Association to donate Ai! Kekute hand soap to nursery schools to help create proper hand washing habits and prevent infectious diseases among young children and teachers. |
| Period | Youth Day, September 4th 2023 |
|---|---|
| Outside collaborators | Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation and an organization supporting self-reliance in Seoul |
| Donation | LCK, one of the leading manufacturers of hygiene products in South Korea, donated BEAT, the country’s leading detergent brand, to support the livelihood of young people in Seoul aiming for self-reliance. |
| Details | To help young people (130 in total) between the ages of 18 and 32 living in Seoul to become self-reliant and establish a stable foundation for their lives, in collaboration with the Seoul Metropolitan Government agency in charge of supporting self-reliance, and provided them with daily commodities such as washing machines, dryers and BEAT, a leading detergent brand in South Korea. |
| Period | March and September 2022 |
|---|---|
| Outside collaborators | Miral Welfare Foundation Helen Keller Center and Korea Foundation for the Prevention of Blindness |
| Donation | Assistance with eye surgery costs through organizations associated with eye health |
| Details | LCK provided substantial support to fulfill the company’s corporate social responsibility and improve brand leadership by helping to pay for eye surgeries through eye health related organizations. Support for cultural activity planning and outdoor activities to promote the emotional well-being of people with visual or auditory impairments. |
| Period | Ongoing since 2022 |
|---|---|
| Outside collaborators | Regular Consultative Committee for Household Goods Business Operators (LCK, LG Household & Health Care, AK, P&G Korea, Henkel Korea), Korea Consumer Agency, Korea Blind Union and the Community Chest of Korea |
| Donation | Produced Braille tags for product identification |
| Details | The Regular Council of Household Goods Suppliers produced Braille tags for product identification, and LCK participated in their distribution. In some product categories, it can be difficult for visually impaired consumers to distinguish between products because the container shapes are the same or similar. To solve this problem, LCK has produced and distributed Braille tags that can be applied to a variety of products, contributing to the safety of the visually impaired. |
| Period | April 2022 |
|---|---|
| Outside collaborators | NAVER |
| Donation | Donation of proceeds |
| Details | Donation promotions with consumer-participation help reinforce positive perceptions of the company and restore trust in its products. For every Ai! Kekute Limited Edition Season 3 set purchased via NAVER live-streaming, one set was donated to Goodwill. In addition, the donation status was relayed in real-time to encourage more donations, with the proceeds going toward creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities. |
