Text . . Wu Chatter Editing by . . He Runhui

Who is the most representative Korean women's team in the world right now?

"BLACKPINK" has become an uncontroversial answer.

Starting in 2017, the Korean entertainment industry, which has lost the Chinese market, has gradually shifted its focus to the west, with almost immediate success: in film, "The Parasite" swept the Oscars;

BLACKPINK signs up for Universal Records in late 2018 to enter the U.S. market.Today, their YouTube channel has more than 48.3 million subscribers, 3.8 times the number of the mainland's first YouTuber。

Three weeks ago, BLACKPINK released a new song MV with "Stupid Face" Selena Gomez, which now has 270 million hits.

BLACKPINK teamed up with Selena Gomez for new song Ice Cream

For the former BLACKPINK, Chinese mainland is a gap in their global reach - the four girls made their way out in August 2016, just missing out on the golden age of Korean artists in the Chinese market.

But this year, "Youth Has You Second Season" helped BLACKPINK open up the Chinese market: Lisa, a Thai member, worked as a mentor on the show, bringing a lot of exposure to the mix. At the beginning of the first half, the names of BLACKPINK members such as Lisa and Jennie were frequently searched.

Recently Pepsi officials announced that they are the Asia-Pacific brand spokesman, widely spread to Chinese mainland, micro-blog also have their open-screen ads;On the afternoon of September 22nd CELINE, the luxury brand, announced Lisa as a global brand ambassador on its official microblog - and the final piece of the puzzle was complete.

In.Poison (WeChat ID: Domore Dumou)It seems that blackPINK-style success is markedly different from previous Korean regiments:Traditional Korean idols are driven by the fan economy, with local and surrounding countries as the focus of development, and BLACKPINK's path is popular and global。

Stand on the shoulders of the Giants

BLACKPINK consists of four post-95 girls who were recruited around 2011 by YG's global practice student selection interviews and practiced at YG for four to five years.

What Chinese netizens are most familiar with is Lisa, a Thai member of the iconic Houqi Liuhai, who immigrated to Australia with her family when Park was 7 years old, and who speaks fluent English.

Jennie（Photo Source:BLACKPINK Officer Bo)

Park Caiying (Photo: BLACKPINK)

The only member living in South Korea, Zhixiu, with a typical Qingxiu Korean-style beauty face, becomes the official face value of the combination. Recently, the official announced the JTBC production of Korean drama, "City of the Sky" class to create the "Snowdrop" heroine.

Zhixiu

Externally, it's hard to see why BLACKPINK stands out from generation to generation in the Korean portfolio and is accepted by the global market.

Over the past decade or so, the Korean idol industry has been moving globally, but both BoA, a singer who has made a big impact in the Japanese market, and WonderGirls, a JYP company that has thrown billions of dollars into the U.S., have all folded. 

The previous success of K-POP in the global market is more like a "snowflake floating" type of accident。 In 2012, Psy's Gangnam Style suddenly went red, and MV broke Justin Bieber's Baby record on YouTube and has now been viewed 3.79 billion times.

Jiangnan Style MV

At the time, the media tried to boil down from his educational background to Uncle Bird's sudden popularity in Europe and the United States: he graduated from Boston University and studied music at Berkeley. But it's been eight years since "Gangnam Style" failed to produce a second billboard hot 100 song.

Nevertheless, the efforts of the entire K-POP industrial system to enter the global market have accumulated effective experience and audience base, which has laid a good foundation for BLACKPINK's global popularity.

The not-so-successful Wonder Girls actually set a new record for Korean artists at Billboard, where in 2009 their masterpiece Nobody reached number 76 in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, making them the first Korean singers to make the list.

Nobody, which used to be popular in Asia.

Around 2010, a Korean group began touring outside Asia. The SM family concert, for example, launched its world tour in 2010, bringing its idols, including Superjunior, to Los Angeles, Paris and New York's Madison Square Garden.

In 2012, BLACKPINK's brother-in-law, BIG BANG, appeared on the Grammys' official website, becoming the first Korean singer to be introduced to the Grammys. By 2019, bulletproof youth groups will have been invited to be Grammy Awards guests.

Photo Source: I'm a Korean maniac

In addition to a generation of Korean artists expanding their audience through their own global events, these events themselves are an important accumulation of experience.

K-POP understands the importance of "international cooperation": choreographers from Los Angeles and composers from the United States and Europe infiltrated the Korean idol music production camp.

Kyle Hanagami, for example, who choreographed the BLACKPINK song "Playing With Fire" and "Boombayah," is from Los Angeles and has 4 million followers on his YouTube channel. "The Boys," which entered the U.S. as a teenager, was produced by Teddy Riley, Michael Jackson's producer.

When entering the international market, Korean entertainment companies are also actively working with big local companies: in late 2018, BLACKPINK signed a record deal with Interscope Records, a global record subsidiary, which black girls chose to sign when they entered the U.S. market in 2011.

In addition, take a hard look at global social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, learn the language culture of the target market, buy YouTube ads for every new MV... These K-POP experiences can be seen in BLACKPINK.

Lisa, who has the most Instagram followers, now has 39 million followers, four members plus more than a billion followers combining official accounts.

Lisa's collaboration with CELINE has been liked 2.87 million times

BlackPINK's membership has its own language advantage over other Korean artists who have to work hard to learn the local language when entering a country's market - they are at least free to communicate with fans in Korean, Thai, and English.

"Fast fashion" success

However, YG's operation of BLACKPINK is still groundbreaking.

Different from the traditional Korean women's group, they are more broken circle, more fashionable, more "passer-by-friendly type."Hanstream music blogger @kudoo called them "south Korea's first women's group to be built entirely on the mind of a fast-fashion brand." "

Kudoo argues that BLACKPINK, like Zara, is not a "powder-absorbing" route for traditional idols, but a popular consumption habit. In layman's terms, BLACKPINK is more popular than the average idol group and close to popular pop singers.

This "mass" attribute, or "broken circle" energy, comes from the distinctive recognition of the four members on the one hand.

Photo Source:BLACKPINK official Bo

Now like BLACKPINK, only four members of the Korean stream combination is becoming less and less common, the talent show limited the number of 10 people jump, SM's men's NCT continue to join the newcomers, the recent number reached a staggering 23.

Ample practice reserves and a highly wired star-making model have made Korean entertainment companies inclined to bet more on more people.Many Korean idols put this in their mouths: we have so many types of members, there is always one to meet the audience.

BLACKPINK is clearly friendliness to passers-by, especially to European and American fans, who are generally somewhat "face-blind" to Asian faces. In addition, Lisa's alien status, Jennie's "royal" legend, the beauty of the wisdom show also provides them with further topics.

Another aspect of the "breaking circle" attribute comes from the popularity of BLACKPINK music works.One of the premises of this popularity is that their music is less difficult and easy to imitate.

In the eyes of the core audience of Korean circles, BLACKPINK still lacks the quality to become a top female troupe: low singing rate, no excellent singing "Korean troupe lead singer", Jennie's frequent rowing is regarded as a lack of idol professional ethics, BLACKPINK in Korea's local record sales, not as good as Twice and other popular female groups.

But these shortcomings in the eyes of the core audience of non-Korean circles, and even make BLACKPINK more imitative - if you want to dance a K-POP dance, BLACKPINK is obviously the first choice, after all, male dance is too difficult, female dance, and BLACKPINK the most out of the circle.

Jennie, who has a hit solo single, "Solo," has more than 10 million hits on stage B, where almost all idol trainers, dancers and even K-POP enthusiasts have flipped and imitated, and the most popular Solo dance video on Station B has been streamed 2.03 million times.

After Solo, BLACKPINK hit the air with Kill this love. They took to the stage at Cocella, America's most influential music festival, with kill this love MV breaking the MV 24-hour world record on YouTube with 56.7 million hits.

BlackPINK has a clear advantage over other Korean groups, but also because of their fashionable social attributes.

In 2018, when YG announced blackPINK's signing of Interscope Records, Chairman John Janick said, "BLACKPINK is a new generation of global superstars with music and shapes that are very different from any other style in pop music today." "

"Styling" and "Music" became side-by-side, together forming blackPINK's breakout code.Lisa's hair color, Jennie's right shoulder, BM wind... BLACKPINK's styling always outputs a lot of topics, and members have fashion resources that are out of reach for women's groups at the same time.

Jennie got the Chanel ambassador in 2018.LisaHe is the Ambassador of Bolgeri Korea and the Global Ambassador of CELINE,Zhixiu and Park Caiying are working in-depth with Dior Makeup and YSL brands respectively.

Not long ago, BLACKPINK collectively appeared on the cover of fashion magazine ELLE's US edition of Silver Ten, where all four wore clothes from their deeply co-ed luxury brands.

Part of this fashion gene comes from the YG family, especially G-Dragon, the captain of the previous group BIGBANG.

Quan Zhilong is a landmark figure in Korean Stream Idol and the first Asian artist to receive Chanel's global brand ambassador, Title. Some Bigbang fans believe that Jennie's soon-to-be ambassador for Chanel has more or less the right to be a relationship.

The New York Times is full of words about Ion Zhilong: " (He) has the ability to express music in a comprehensive way, and if he works harder to convey music through visual effects, he will go further." The K-POP era, which mimics American pop music, will be over, and the world will learn from G-Dragon. "

But YG has so many artists, "inherited" to the right Zhilong fashion sense, it seems that only BLACKPINK.

With solo kill this love as a clear node, blackPINK's image is clearly without losing sweetness, to a certain extent in line with the popular ABG (Asian baby girl) style in Europe and the United States, this year's new song how you like that, they have a fire hanging ear dye.

Photo Source:BLACKPINK official Bo

Jennie's fans often accuse some of the stars in the market of imitating Jennie's dress, a "plagiarism" list that even includes Ken Doo, Kim Kardashian and Yu-Yu Zhang. Although there is quite a "cosmic origin" of the dining circle style, but also side note that Jennie and even BLACKPINK modeling style and the United States famous, net red, star between the non-sub-wall.

Such a fashion style also makes BLACKPINK in Europe and the United States entertainment circle closer, farther away from the traditional Korean women's group, and finally make BLACKPINK to another track.

When BLACKPINK released its mini-album Kill this Love in April 2019, it went to the U.S. for promotional work just a week after playing songs in South Korea. Others, which often play songs for more than a month, struggle to seamlessly record all the TV stations' songs.

The last piece of jigsaw puzzle: the capture of internal entertainment

Under the strong popularity of BLACKPINK and bulletproof youth groups, the U.S. market seems to have embraced the "invasion" of Korean Stream, the Grammys, Cocella, Billboard... Many high-profile awards, list to the Korean stream extended an olive branch.

Two weeks ago, Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl, the most authoritative pop charts in Europe and the United States, set up two new heavyweights. U.S., top global music.

According to New Music Industry Watch's first-week list, South Korean artists make up 3% and 4.5% of the list, surpassing all European countries except the UK, and only a narrow gap from pop music powerhouse Japan.

Photo: Weibo, New Music Industry Watch

On September 13th Jennie told hitS 97.3 SoFlo Morning Show: "Other artists are doing what we do overseas, watching them, and we're growing, hoping that we can also be a group that paves the way for other foreign artists." "

BlackPINK paves the way for globalization, as it has done in the past, with the first Korean groups to power the Chinese and Japanese markets. Now, following their success in dominating Southeast Asia and the U.S. market, they have completed the "last piece of the puzzle" on the mainland.

The way to complete the puzzle is: the only Thai member who can play the Chinese variety show Lisa, with the idol talent show "Youth has you 2" to gain public awareness, she is also the first sina microblog blackPINK members.

"Green You 2" contestants see her, the expression is like seeing their own dreams - look at the player information link will find that many of the contestants' idol column is written blackPINK, Yu Shuxin is also their die-end powder.

Lisa's intersection with "Green You 2" is also a win-win for in-house entertainment and Korean streaming. With Lisa's global reach, Green You 2 has gained a huge amount of air on YouTube (Mainland idol talent show, is borrowing K-POP's east wind to go out to seaThe new cabaret of the "Green You 2" troupe THE9 also came in fifth place on Thailand's Twitter trend.

Following Lisa, three other members of BLACKPINK also started their own business by tweeting.

But frequent hot search also makes them on the "buy marketing" question, according to the bean petal Korean kimchi team member statistics,Between June 10 and September 17 this year, BLACKPINK made up to 46 twitter searches - the equivalent of the total number of hot searches in the first half of 2020 by top traffic Wang Junkai.

On station B, BLACKPINK's several video collections exceeded 10 million, three times the maximum number of videos played by bulletproof youth groups - not surprisingly, the difference between "fast fashion" idols and traditional idols, if the fans' ability to gold, bulletproof youth groups will be several times blackPINK.

In addition, the BLACKPINK stage in Station B, also higher than the entertainment representative of the women's group rocket girl 101, THE9 and hard candy girl 303,The lack of high-quality singing and dancing platforms in the growing Chinese women's groups is also an important reason why BLACKPINK is able to reap traffic in-house.

Traffic quickly changed to commercial value: BLACKPINK's Chinese fan input sales were rising year by year, and this time, back-up set a "lose-lose" target of 500,000 albums.

Lisa's fans, who have raised millions for her idol's birthday, are the most female bean lovers in South Korea; Lisa has spoken for Chinese mobile phone brand vivo and BLACKPINK's Pepsi ad has been rolled out.

Of course, the controversy surrounding BLACKPINK is also growing, previously did not like their netizens spitting groping them fake singing, watering, poor strength, buy YouTube ads ... Now they are taunted for not being self-helping, calling themselves "pavers" for the Korean regiment to go global.

But these controversies continue to fuel BLACKPINK's rise to the fore , generating controversy and topics, and developing awareness and accelerating redness. Just as fast fashion brands are forever scolded for poor quality and plagiarism, stores still cover every corner of the world

As BLACKPINK's iconic lyrics sing：“BLACKPINK in your area”Where you have BLACKPINK, you like it or not, they're all there.