K-pop girl group Loona will be promoting Korean culture abroad in 2021 as honorary ambassadors for the Korean Culture and Information Service.

The 12 band members’ main role as honorary ambassadors is to take part in KOCIS events to promote South Korea’s global image as well as its pop culture content, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The girl group has already participated in promotional videos for the Talk Talk Korea contest organized by KOCIS. The videos will be released May 20 and 25 on KOCIS’ YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/GatewaytoKorea.

Since 2014, the government agency has worked with popular K-pop bands to promote the contest. Past celebrity representatives included BTS, EXO, Winner, Stray Kids and Ateez. In 2019 KOCIS broadened its celebrities’ role, appointing them as honorary ambassadors.

Loona’s 12 members started making their debuts one by one in August 2018, with each musician putting out her own record.

In February the group’s all-English song “Star” made it to No. 40 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart. With the hit Loona became the first K-pop girl group to rank on the radio chart since October last year, when Blackpink reached No. 21.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)