Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lessons from
K-pops Global Success
SEO Min-Soo
60 | www.seriquarterly.com
SEO Min-Soo
|Figure
Germany
20,114,996
Russia
UK
22,705,547
Kazakhstan
Europe
Mongolia
Middle
China
Asia
East
India
France
26,591,412
Saudi Arabia
42,719,685
Africa
Thailand
224,813,564
Malaysia
98,693,969
Singapore
68,546,360
Vietnam
177,358,800
Japan 423,683,759
North America
Canada
46,477,940
US
240,748,112
Korea 155,325,204
Taiwan 189,027,731
Hong Kong 76,937,448
South America
Philippines 74,251,012
Mexico
34,237,580
Peru
25,503,082
Australia
27,132,121
Indonesia
81,128,637
<Views by Region>
Brazil
21,090,241
Chile
13,777,557
Asia 1,662,650,415
North America 289,271,024
South America 119,078,862
Africa 9,630,772
Europe 173,862,484
Oceania 30,820,231
Others 1,340,903
Note: GDP based on Purchasing Power Parity per capita.
Source: JoongAng Ilbo. The number of views of K-POP videos on YouTube reached 2.3 billion in 235 countries last year. (January 2, 2011).
Preparation
Consumers
Content
T-savvy
fan base
Systematic
preparation
Singing and
choreography styles
62 | www.seriquarterly.com
SEO Min-Soo
|Figure
Preliminary Research
Casting
Training
Producing
Global Promotion
Nurture best
candidates for years
Focus on finding
talented aspirants
In the casting stage, production companies focus on finding bankable stars. Trainees are
found through auditions or recommendations
from existing celebrities. Auditions are also held
overseas.
pop conventions. Visually, K-pop uses tight choreography to sustain high energy and interest,
while an ever changing range of fashions and
styles ensure that its performers remain fresh
and appealing. K-pops formula has met with
broad appeal across a myriad of nationalities
and languages.
New
products
K-pop Singers
Talent
Perfected visual styles
New
marketing
K-pop Fans
Worldwide, all regions
SNS users
64 | www.seriquarterly.com
High
Middle
Low
Correlation
New
market
Targeting
the transnational-market
Animation,
Games,
Software,
Movies,
Fashion,
Characters, Cosmetics,
Distribution,
IT,
Tourism,
Home
Restaurants Electronics
Cars,
Food &
Beverages,
Others
SEO Min-Soo
The emergence of
K-pop is the result of
methodical planning and
execution that offers
lessons to any company
setting its sights on the
global market.
Keywords
K-pop, YouTube, Facebook, Korean Wave, Girls'
Generation
Implications
K-pops groundbreaking success challenges assumptions that Korean culture, especially
when presented to outsiders, must always mean
traditional culture. Korean companies can
learn from this success by reassessing their existing business models and aggressively retooling them to capture overseas markets.
Companies can also pay attention to the pro66 | www.seriquarterly.com
SEO Min-Soo is a research fellow at SERI. His areas of expertise include art management, the culture industry and culture and
art policy. He holds an MA in Psychology from Seoul National
University. Contact: msoo.seo@samsung.com
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