Mix and Match

Sistar - The summer representative in K-Pop

As the core content of this blog, K-Pop shows a variety of marketing strategies and tactics. Entertainment companies from South Korea are expert on consumer psychology, and they seize every chance to spread out to the world. For the past few years, K-Pop has put entertainment marketing into a new realm. Here are some general marketing practices from K-Pop to release songs and shows:

Viral Songs Covering

Undoubtedly, American music is still the mainstream on the world. However, K-Pop knows exactly how to combine their strengths with it. With their fancy stage effects and remarkable dance choreography, they bring those English pop songs into a brand new show and strike a chord with people from all around the world. Let’s enjoy DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love covered by TTS and EXO in SM Town Live WorldTour III.

Special Seasonal Songs

Besides entertainers’ regular comeback, management companies sometimes will release special songs tailored to specific season or holiday. For example, when it comes to summer, lots of groups will release songs with music videos containing all kinds of summer elements. As in winter time, Christmas is always the best highlight of the season, and you will hear many songs regarding Christmas during this holiday. Not only entertainment companies will create songs for the special time, but also music programs, which will plan lots of special stage performance to boost ratings. Let’s take Starship Entertainment as an example, which has released Christmas song with all its entertainers for several years.

Collaboration

Collaboration is very common in music industry throughout the world, including K-Pop. You can always see entertainers from different companies or groups collaborate on a special song or a special performance. This helps create buzz and enhance popularity of all participants. The most successful K-Pop collaboration in recent years might be Trouble Maker, a duo composed of Hyuna from 4Minute and Jang Hyun-seung from Beast. 

Human Wave Tactics - Large Groups (II)

Like mentioned in Human Wave Tactics (I), large group is a special feature of K-Pop. You can always find a group with more than 5 members, and some even over 10. Besides the main effect of abundant visual and auditory entertainment, there are lots of other functions and benefits.

Reduce Risk

K-Pop is very “show-oriented”, and dancing is particularly important for a stage show. However, group members may sometimes absent from shows due to inevitable reasons (e.g. being injured, filming dramas or movies). For groups with fewer than 4 members, merely the lack of one person will make the show hollow and insubstantial. Therefore, as long as one member is absent, small groups are often forced to abandon performance opportunities. In contrast, large groups have enough people to sustain the show and maintain the integrity of dance choreography even if one or two members are unable to attend. This helps reduce the risk of show cancel and improve the convenience of performing.

AOA performed the same song with full group and one person less

Subunit

Large groups are able to create subgroups, which may be a great opportunity to absorb new fans, increase popularity, and expand the market. The scenario of subunits can be divided into three:

1. Group's popularity drive its subunit

Some groups are just too successful that their management companies will take advantage of the high popularity to make subunits. The best example is TTS from Girls' Generation. Both the group and subunit achieved great success.

TTS from Girls' Generation

2. Subunit’s popularity drive its group

Some groups are still mediocre few years after debuting, so management companies will take a chance to release a subunit. There’re some cases that subunits success and raise awareness of groups, such as Orange Caramel from After School.

Orange Caramel from After School

3. Created with subunits

Some groups are originally created with assigned subunits. Cosmic Girls, which debuted with 12 members in 2016, are divided equally into 4 subunits – Wonder Unit, Joy Unit, Sweet Unit, and Natural Unit. 

Cosmic Girls / WJSN