Case Study: K-Pop, Inc
K-Pop, Inc.
It should come as no surprise to you, that K-Pop entertainment companies indeed need to generate income. Training idols, inventing concepts, producing songs, creating choreographies, hiring administrative personnel, are not freely available. They generate costs you and I may never earn in our lifetime.
Making money is the main priority of any business. K-Pop entertainment companies are no different.
What are the main income channels? Album sales. Ticket sales. Endorsements. Exclusive rights. Merchandise.
All of these have one thing in common: The companies’ groups need to have fans. Instead of buying the new album, I would spend my 20 bucks differently. If I was a company, I would partner with a popular group, not a nobody. …show more content…
This is madness! Instead of companies investing an impressive chunk of their budget for marketing, they keep those fans engaged for a much lesser cost.
How do you keep alive an OTP? It is simple, really. You just feed the imagination with interactions on camera. This is a part of fan service.
There are certain components that make an OTP work. First, the people need to fit. Second, they need to have regular interactions. Third, there needs to be mystery.
Mystery is the most crucial part of an OTP. Without it, there would be no room for imagination. For some, an OTP is an endless hunt for more information on a relationship between these two people. For some, it is a projection, an idea of how the world should look like. If there was an annual State of the Relationship, the OTP may still work but it will be seriously impaired.
The only way to get new information about your OTP is to stay engaged with the idol group. By staying engaged emotionally, the chance of you buying products of that group is increased.
Without evidence backing this up, I claim that K-Pop entertainment companies intentionally cultivate OTPs for this very …show more content…
Do you smell the hypocrisy?
Why OTPs tell a different story than reality
Because we do not have the full picture or even an intentionally skewed picture of a relationship, we can only try to make conclusion about the relationship between two people with publicly available content.
We only see our OTP in a public setting. As celebrities learn very early, private space becomes sacred. This means you are always in the public unless known otherwise. Fan cameras, broadcasts, photos, all of these are taken in known public settings.
We behave differently when we know we are being watched. Even when we like being on camera. If you were a heavy swearer, you would probably not continue doing this when you are on a live broadcast.
However, we are not part of the relationship for the majority of time. If it is genuine, it develops outside of the public eye. How well would you develop friendship - or, god forbid, even romantic interests if those exist - on camera?
Because relationships are usually a private thing (unless, of course, you use them for business purposes), others are not involved in the process. This is human
It should come as no surprise to you, that K-Pop entertainment companies indeed need to generate income. Training idols, inventing concepts, producing songs, creating choreographies, hiring administrative personnel, are not freely available. They generate costs you and I may never earn in our lifetime.
Making money is the main priority of any business. K-Pop entertainment companies are no different.
What are the main income channels? Album sales. Ticket sales. Endorsements. Exclusive rights. Merchandise.
All of these have one thing in common: The companies’ groups need to have fans. Instead of buying the new album, I would spend my 20 bucks differently. If I was a company, I would partner with a popular group, not a nobody. …show more content…
This is madness! Instead of companies investing an impressive chunk of their budget for marketing, they keep those fans engaged for a much lesser cost.
How do you keep alive an OTP? It is simple, really. You just feed the imagination with interactions on camera. This is a part of fan service.
There are certain components that make an OTP work. First, the people need to fit. Second, they need to have regular interactions. Third, there needs to be mystery.
Mystery is the most crucial part of an OTP. Without it, there would be no room for imagination. For some, an OTP is an endless hunt for more information on a relationship between these two people. For some, it is a projection, an idea of how the world should look like. If there was an annual State of the Relationship, the OTP may still work but it will be seriously impaired.
The only way to get new information about your OTP is to stay engaged with the idol group. By staying engaged emotionally, the chance of you buying products of that group is increased.
Without evidence backing this up, I claim that K-Pop entertainment companies intentionally cultivate OTPs for this very …show more content…
Do you smell the hypocrisy?
Why OTPs tell a different story than reality
Because we do not have the full picture or even an intentionally skewed picture of a relationship, we can only try to make conclusion about the relationship between two people with publicly available content.
We only see our OTP in a public setting. As celebrities learn very early, private space becomes sacred. This means you are always in the public unless known otherwise. Fan cameras, broadcasts, photos, all of these are taken in known public settings.
We behave differently when we know we are being watched. Even when we like being on camera. If you were a heavy swearer, you would probably not continue doing this when you are on a live broadcast.
However, we are not part of the relationship for the majority of time. If it is genuine, it develops outside of the public eye. How well would you develop friendship - or, god forbid, even romantic interests if those exist - on camera?
Because relationships are usually a private thing (unless, of course, you use them for business purposes), others are not involved in the process. This is human