Graphic by Kristy Lee
The continued success of Korean pop music, or K-pop, can be attributed to a strategy known as “culture technology,” according to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review.
Culture technology, or CT, is a concept developed by Lee Soo Man, founder of talent agency titan SM Entertainment in which Korean pop culture is “seeded” in foreign markets to expand its global appeal.
These talent agencies resemble the old Hollywood studios in terms of their size, organization, contractual relationship with their stars, and control of their private lives. Each have hundreds of young talents who are trained as quadruple threats: they can sing, dance, act, and speak foreign languages. But where the older CT model relied on local artists like Rain and BoA, the updated model tries to embed more and more foreign singers from strategic markets into larger girl or boy bands. These imported singers are then used to promote their acts back in their respective home countries.
And this goes a step further. Girls’ Generation and its male version, Super Junior (which contains 11 singers), are sometimes broken into subunits with each specializing in different aspects of entertainment whether it is singing, dancing, rapping, or language. In effect, they become like a “Transformer” that can be configured and then reconfigured into different cultural versions. For instance, Super Junior M (“M” for Mandarin) is a subunit that was developed specifically for the large Chinese market.
The Harvard Business Review article was co-written by Dae Ryun Chang, a professor at the Yonsei School of Business and Kyongon Choi, former chief executive of Evergreen Contents, a media consulting firm.
Chung and Choi contend that the CT model can be used to enhance a lesser-known company’s foreign presence using a cultural platform that can be tweaked for a specific country.
“From products to pop stars, CT can provide great ways to get a global audience, right from the start.”
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Terri, it’s rare that “foreign” pop music makes waves, unless its lyrics are in English. And if foreign pop music does become popular here in the US, it’s only ephemeral. K-pop may appeal to the Korean and Asian crowd, but I just don’t see mainstream Americans embracing it. As a Korean-American person, I can’t even get into it. K-pop may arise as a popular subcultural thing a la Japanese culture via anime and all that other quirky stuff, but I don’t see the typical white, Latino or black youth bobbing their heads to “candied out” sounding K-pop. Most American youths would see K-pop as too ‘cutesy’ and feminine aka “ehh kyho” for their tastes…so don’t worry, because it sounds as though you’re not ethusiastic about K-pop.
You know?
Marketing, schmarketing. People really underestimate U.S. fans’ interest in music across the globe. They always have.
I think the main reason K-Pop is making an upward swing is because it’s simply AVAILABLE. After all you can’t be a fan of something you’ve never heard or don’t know about or can’t even BUY.
It’s more of an issue of global markets and trade agreements than it is some shrewd Harvard-educated smuck getting some great idea to market more smartly to fans here in the U.S.
If you can’t even stumble across an MV on YouTube of a new hot Korean pop-star then you’re not going to become a fan of his/her music. And even if you do stumble across them, if you can’t even buy their songs, then what recourse do you have? In the past, there was absolutely no recourse. Thank goodness that the Internet has changed the game.
And I’m so glad that K-Pop fans appear to be outspoken and demanding. Otherwise, they would still be stuck listening to the same old pap. But you know what? They may, even yet. Because I’m wondering how the U.S. music industry is going to take all this K-Pop shoving its way into their territory? Will they welcome the competition? Hm… Let me think about that for a bit. Um…NO.
Terri :-}