A Marketing Crash Course from K-Pop
How did BTS smash album sales records set by Michael Jackson, The Beatles, and Madonna (💕) to become the most loved music act of all time? How did they win over 23 Guinness World Records? And how did they break through the cultural barrier by singing in Korean, a language understood by less than 1% of our globe?
In 2022, BTS drew 200,000 people to Las Vegas and sold out the Allegiant Stadium on April 8-9 and April 15-16—going head-to-head with Coachella, which was happening just 200 miles away. Not only were the stadium’s 65,000 seats sold out—the septet also rented (and also sold out) the nearby MGM Grand Garden Arena to air a special livecast of the concert for the fans who couldn’t get into the show. BTS’ short residency in Vegas was practically a festival in its own right, with The Strip turning BTS-purple to honor the band.
So what strategies did BTS (and the K-pop industry in general) employ to create a movement that transcends borders, language, and culture? And what can we as marketers learn to employ in our own efforts?
According to our Head of Content Marianne Salazar (an avid BTS fan), what makes K-pop’s impact remarkable is the fans’ devotion beyond attending shows and buying merch. Fans actively mobilize in a deliberate effort to smash records, self-organizing like a social and political movement.
So Marianne and I set out to understand why.
A Rich Hero’s Journey with Riveting Origin Stories
A lot of artists faced hardship early on, but BTS’ rags-to-riches story is probably the most documented: a tale of seven scrappy teens from a nearly bankrupt, no-name label who went up against bands backed by Korea’s establishment “Big Three” labels.
Whereas Lou Pearlman downplayed how he assembled the Backstreet Boys, K-pop is quite open about the band-building process and uses it to its advantage. Bang Si Hyuk left a major label, founded BigHit Entertainment, and set about building a hip-hop boy band. Two members were chosen for their underground rapper cred. Two members were brought in for their dancing skills. And one member was actually scouted because he looked handsome while hopping off a bus.
On the other hand, many K-pop groups are also formed through “survival shows:” Think American Idol, but instead of just one Kelly Clarkson winning, you get a handful of winners who emerge as members of an all-new group. One Direction was formed when a handful of X-Factor solo auditioners were combined into a single group, but this idea of assembling a group “in public” doesn’t seem to have a parallel in Western music.
It’s easy to see the benefits of forming a group through a TV competition: the label advertises the survival show, and they engage the audience to vote for their favorite candidates. And as the audience’s relationship with the survivors grows week after week, the label cultivates a grassroots following for the resulting band.
Once the band’s lineup is finalized, the next step is chronicling the training process. You see, K-pop groups don’t immediately release a record. Instead, they became “trainees”, a process that fans say is much more grueling than anything western boy bands had to endure.
In vlog videos published in 2013, months before BTS released their first song, the band members shared stories about living together in a one-bedroom dorm, grueling dance practices, and pizza parties, all in the lead-up to debuting as a band. This level of authenticity was, at that time, rare even in K-pop. Bang Si Hyuk was a visionary: he empowered BTS to communicate directly with fans on social, creating a deep, authentic bond. To me, this echoes an insight from The Long Tail, which posits that because rock bands toured more than hip-hop artists, they had a loyal grassroots following that would keep buying records and, therefore, were better able to defend against the rise of free streaming mp3s.
Finally, no hero’s journey is complete without an enemy. Once BTS debuted, they faced struggles such as being mistreated by variety show hosts and having performances cut short. They were accused of misogyny, plagiarism, and chart manipulation. Anti-fans sent the group death threats and actively sabotaged their concerts—they even petitioned the South Korean government and music associations to revoke awards. But as in any good hero’s journey, BTS thrived despite the odds, turning their hardship into inspiration.
Real-Time Engagement
Long before TikTok and Instagram offered livestreaming, K-pop groups embraced now-defunct V-Live to do live broadcasts and interact in real-time with their fans. These offer an unfiltered peek into the idols’ personalities, creating an authentic image that’s missing from most artists I listen to. I think about the artists I follow on Instagram: even today, almost none of them do live streams.
Weaving An Elaborate Tapestry of Stories and Lore
The “come from nothing” origin story can only carry on for so long. Once the heroes have reached the height of their power and success, a good storyteller finds new dimensions to propel the story forward. They invent fantastical storylines, as Michael Jackson did with “Thriller”.
But K-pop found a way to take this concept further. Just as TV shows have moved from standalone episodes in the 90s to multi-season story arcs, many K-pop groups have crafted fictional storylines that span across multiple songs and music videos. Some storylines involve extraterrestrial origins, while others tell the tale of AI alter egos.
When Marianne shared this idea with me, it immediately clicked: Just as I’ll watch The Hulk just to get a glimpse of Tony Stark, by linking artists’ stories together, a label can move an audience from one artist to another with these self-reinforcing bonds. A pantheon of interconnected heroes and villains can exist within the storylines of the music.
SM Entertainment created the fictional SM Culture Universe, which, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, links the fictional storylines of several artists in its roster. “It consists of multiple dimensions: The real world, where regular humans like you and me live, and an alternate dimension called “KWANGYA”, where data-powered AI alter egos (called AEs) live in danger of being overtaken by a villainous serpent called “BLACK MAMBA.” You’ll hear these terms in the songs of SM’s groups, including Aespa and NCT.
Fan Mobilization and Fundraising For Causes
Modern social media has enabled fans to self-organize in a way never before possible. The birthdays of the most famous K-pop idols are treated like actual holidays, with fans self-organizing and fundraising to create their own in-person events and send expensive presents.
Several K-pop fandoms have self-organized to buy billboards in Times Square. However, the ad that takes the cake is this: when BTS’ V turned 25 in December 2020, his Chinese fanbase raised $1M to light the Burj Khalifa with birthday messages.
The influence of K-pop idols has also made them attractive endorsers on social media. K-pop girl group BLACKPINK holds several records on Instagram for engagement and follower count—a random selfie from one of the members can easily launch several adoring hashtags on multiple platforms. Their high EMV makes them effective endorsers and brand ambassadors.
The single best example of how K-Pop feels and acts more like a social movement is how the BTS fandom, called ARMY, punked Donald Trump. Tens of thousands of fans registered for a Tulsa, OK rally in June 2020. Trump gloated about the expected turnout, but only 6,000 attendees actually showed up to the 19,000-person venue.
Projecting their Influence Globally Through Online Events
Though K-pop groups sing primarily in Korean, they have tremendous influence throughout Asia. According to data released by Twitter, the largest markets talking about K-Pop are actually Indonesia and Thailand, with South Korea coming in third. Japan, the second largest music market in the world, is also a major target of the K-pop industry, with several K-pop groups releasing songs, merchandise, and other content in Japanese.
Several groups have also made an effort to make their concerts more accessible worldwide. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the major entertainment companies explored the livestream format as an alternative to in-person concerts: The artists would perform as usual, but the venue would be devoid of an audience. When health restrictions eased up, livestreams complemented in-person concerts, allowing more fans to enjoy the highly anticipated performances in real-time from home and becoming a viable revenue stream.
For the Korean leg of their Permission To Dance On Stage concerts in March 2022, BTS complemented their three-day live concert with a paid livestream and global broadcast in theaters, raking in over $90M in digital streaming revenue compared to just $6M from the in-person ticket sales.
Continuous Releases
You know how Adele releases one album every five years and then seemingly drops off the face of the earth? That won’t do in K-pop. Most idol groups release at least one song annually. Some even churn out whole albums 3 times a year.
And just like any good marketing campaign, a typical K-pop release will have an omnichannel promotional strategy. There’s usually a complete roadmap before the release of a new album, with group and individual concept photos and video snippets, song title reveals, and music video teasers to get the fans hyped up.
After the album drops, there will also be a series of live performances, fan meets, and media interviews. Most groups promote their new release on Korea’s music shows, while more famous acts may appear on talk shows abroad. Going through this cycle several times a year makes for a jam-packed schedule.
The “Surprise and Delight” of Merch
In K-pop, merch serves to help fans express their love for the groups they adore. Albums are the most important merch a fan can buy. Sales of physical albums may be dropping all across the world, but that’s not the case in Korea, where popular groups could sell a million copies even before the launch date.
A big driver of Korea’s high album sales is the random photocard found in each album. Most albums usually have at least two versions, and fans would, of course, do their best to collect all the photocards of their favorite member (whom they refer to as their “bias”). There are also fans who want to get the photocards of all the members of their favorite group—so if a group with 13 members releases an album with two versions, that’s at least 26 albums they’d have to buy to collect them all. Photocards have spawned an entire secondary market, with the rarest photocards easily going for over $1000.
Lightsticks are another example of merch that’s distinctly K-pop. Each K-pop act has its own unique lightstick, and owning a group’s lightstick can be seen as a declaration of your love for the artists they represent. Fans would wave around their lightsticks during concerts—some lightsticks could even be synced so they would glow depending on where you’ll be seated in the venue, turning the concert into a multi-hour light show.
Finally, there’s the usual merch that comes out with every release: apparel, photobooks, small items such as pens and keychains, and paper items like stickers and A4-sized photos. All these make for an easy cash grab—merch brought $132M in revenue to the K-pop industry in 2018, and the numbers are probably much higher now, with fans spending hundreds of dollars for their favorite idols.
More Than Music
Finally, K-pop idols solidify their direct connection with fans by dropping the act and participating in “unscripted” shows where they can be themselves while playing games or doing other fun activities. The most popular groups have their own shows (such as BTS’ Run BTS! series), which you can watch on their YouTube channels.
These shows allow their personalities to shine, making them an effective branding exercise. For the fans, seeing K-pop stars struggle in games, goof around, and do stuff regular people do turns these otherwise-unreachable idols into relatable, endearing personalities (“stars—they’re just like us!”).
As they grow in their careers, the most popular stars get tapped to emcee music and award shows, or guest on popular Korean shows like Running Man. Several idols, such as popular soloist IU and Girls Generation’s Yoona, have also showcased their acting chops in K-dramas. And, just like any other celeb, the biggest stars have brand endorsements and partnerships. All these further elevate their popularity and help them reach a wider audience.
Kindness, Authenticity, and Finger Hearts🫰
If we have to summarize everything we’ve observed about how K-pop groups achieve success, it’s that a genuine, relatable approach—and oodles of love towards the fans—works best.
One of the things that made BTS the biggest K-pop group right now is their frequent communication and loud devotion toward their fans, called ARMY (which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth). Since the very beginning, they’ve made use of several channels to talk directly with ARMY. They have been talking to fans on YouTube and Twitter even before they debuted in June 2013. They have livestreams on their birthdays and after their concerts. And they always give a shout-out to ARMY whenever they win an award.
In return, ARMY goes just as hard for the boys, selling out their concerts, buying all their merch, streaming their music, and campaigning for them during award shows. When BTS was just breaking out in the USA in 2017, ARMY would send flowers and cupcakes to radio stations to get them to play their music—and when BTS got more famous, they would show up in droves wherever the band is scheduled to appear. And even if the BTS members are now focusing on their individual careers, ARMY is still going all out and setting records for the boys.
This degree of organic devotion is every marketer’s dream—and it’s achievable (up to a certain extent) with the right strategy.