Entertainment Companies Form Multinational Teams to Broaden Reach
While the original soundtrack "Golden" from "K-pop Demon Hunters" has once again proven the strength of K-pop, major domestic entertainment companies are also busy creating new success stories for K-pop. These companies are strengthening the scalability of K-pop by going beyond simply debuting domestic idols overseas or adding foreign members, instead forming teams composed of multinational members or locals.
According to industry sources on Aug. 12, domestic entertainment companies such as HYBE, SM Entertainment, and CJ ENM are achieving successive results by forming global idol and local idol teams. HYBE’s Korean-American joint girl group CATSEYE, which debuted in June last year, is a prime example. CATSEYE’s singles "Nali" and "Gabriella" both entered the U.S. Billboard main singles chart Hot 100 and the UK Official Singles Chart Top 100. According to Spotify, the cumulative number of plays for the 13 songs released by CATSEYE since their debut has exceeded 1 billion. CATSEYE also recently ranked 12th on Bloomberg’s Pop Star Power Ranking. Only one member of CATSEYE is Korean, while the other five have diverse nationalities including American, Indian-American, Filipino-American, and Swiss-Italian dual citizenship. Encouraged by CATSEYE’s success, HYBE plans to debut two localized groups in South America and has recently started large-scale auditions in Japan. The company has also established an Indian subsidiary, targeting the Indian market, which is the world’s most populous country and where K-pop is highly popular. Regarding HYBE’s strategy, Bloomberg commented, “Chairman Bang Si-hyuk has expressed confidence that he can make K-pop an even bigger and more global phenomenon.”
SM’s British boy group Dear Alice also gained popularity immediately upon debut. Within a week of its release in February this year, their debut single "Ariana" ranked 2nd on the UK Official Chart’s Physical Singles’ and 3rd on Single Sales, proving their potential for global growth.
CJ ENM, which has been nurturing idols focusing on the Chinese, Japanese, and Southeast Asian markets through Mnet audition programs, has also recently turned its attention to the global market. The company is taking a leading role in the production of "K-popped," a music competition series to be showcased on Apple TV Plus. The program features global pop stars and K-pop stars pairing up to reinterpret each other’s hit songs over eight episodes, with famous pop singer Lionel Richie and CJ Group Vice Chairwoman Lee Mi-kyung as executive producers.
JYP Entertainment will introduce GIRLSET, a girl group consisting of three Americans and one Canadian, on Aug. 29. GIRLSET is a restructured team from the U.S. localization girl group formed through a joint survival audition with the local label Republic Records.
These attempts by K-pop companies are analyzed as a complex result of factors including low growth in traditional K-pop markets such as Korea and Southeast Asia, and changes in population composition due to declining domestic birth rates. Additionally, the mega-hit of K-pop Demon Hunters has shown new possibilities, accelerating the localization strategies of domestic entertainment companies.