Client
Irdeto (Denuvo)
Industry
Cybersecurity
Tags
Performance Marketing
Building Denuvo's First Korean Search Presence and Steering KR Strategy with Market Data
Introduction
Denuvo, Irdeto's game security solution, is the industry standard in anti-tamper and anti-cheat technology, protecting many of the world's biggest game releases. Korea is one of the world's largest gaming markets, yet Denuvo had no local marketing presence and no clear picture of how Korean developers, publishers, and gamers actually search and talk about the brand.
Denuvo partnered with expand k to build its Korean foundation from zero, covering KR keyword research, landing page localisation, and Naver Search Ads management, with the goal of building brand awareness and generating qualified leads in the Korean market.
Challenges & Objectives
Game security is a niche B2B category, and in Korea the conversation around DRM and anti-cheat is active, opinionated, and often critical. For a brand like Denuvo, entering the Korean market is not just a matter of running ads. It requires understanding the real search demand, the sentiment behind it, and where paid search can and cannot do the work.
The objectives were to build Denuvo's first Korean search presence, capture high-intent demand around game security, and give the global team a clear, data-backed view of the Korean market to guide strategy.
Activities
expand k conducted KR keyword research across brand, product, industry, and competitor terms, mapping how Korean audiences search around game security, DRM, and anti-cheat. Denuvo's landing page content was localised for Korean audiences, and Naver Search Ads were launched across Brand, Industry, and Competitor campaigns, with dedicated ad sets covering anti-tamper and anti-cheat demand.
Beyond campaign management, expand k monitored the search environment around Denuvo on Naver and found that brand-related results skewed towards concern-led narratives within the gaming community. Rather than pushing more spend into a limited keyword pool, expand k advised a strategy shift towards KR Digital PR to build a more balanced brand presence, a recommendation grounded in real search data rather than assumptions.
Results
Denuvo now has its first Korean search presence, with brand and category keywords capturing high-intent traffic from the game security space, and a clear picture of Korean search demand and brand sentiment that the global team did not previously have. Most importantly, the next phase of Denuvo's KR strategy is being shaped by market data, with Digital PR positioned to address brand perception where paid search alone cannot.
expand k gave Denuvo what a market entry actually needs first: an honest, data-backed understanding of the Korean market, and a strategy built to match it.