How Did Blackpink Become The Biggest Girl Group In The World?
Blackpink only needed less than 4 minutes to blow Jeremy Erlich's mind. Erlich was working at Interscope Records (an American record label) when a contact in South Korea sent him the video for "Ddu-Du Ddu-Du," the lead single from Blackpink's 2018 first EP. "Put aside the fact that I couldn't understand half of it, the visuals are incredible, the girls are stars, the music is good and it's catchy," he said. Erlich then set up a meeting with YG Entertainment Inc., during which the South Korean music giant outlined the goals for its new four-member girl group. "The ambition was to be the biggest band in the world" stated Erlich.
That dream is now a reality. Blackpink has been the most popular act on Youtube for the past couple of years, generating more than 28 billion views in total on their Youtube account alone. All told, Blackpink is the biggest music act in the world, according to Bloomberg's Pop Star Power Rankings. Blackpink has achieved a level of global popularity unprecedented in the history of the music industry. Musicians that speak English have traveled all over the world for decades. Musicians that speak Spanish have started to top the charts across the western hemisphere over the last decade but only in the past couple of years have acts from Asia developed such strong followings across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America.
Prior to the internet, overseas bands had to tour, or rely on radio play and TV appearances to develop a fanbase in the U.S., the world's largest music market, or in Western Europe, which is home to several major markets but social media, paired with global distribution from Youtube and Spotify, has enabled K-Pop bands to develop followings all over the world with minimal touring. The U.S., Brazil, and Mexico are three of the six biggest markets on Spotify for Blackpink's single like "Lovesick Girls."
"Language doesn't seem to be a barrier in today's world," told Erlich, who is now Spotify's co-head of music. Asian pop groups have been traveling to the west for a couple of decades now, dating back to Japan's Arashi and South Korea's BIGBANG but the groups never sustained a large following outside of Asia but it's Blackpink, whose members speak English, Thai, Korean, Mandarin and Japanese, that broke through first. Blackpink planted its flag in the U.S. a few years back, building a promotional tour around a performance at Coachella, the largest music festival in North America. The band received strong reviews from the local press and further boosted their global fandom with a tour of Europe.
Blackpink's growing support in the U.S. was enough to convince Kelly Deen, the vice president of global brand marketing for Jazwares LLC, a Florida-based toy company, that the time was right to bet on K-Pop as a new global phenomenon. Jazwares has a habit of spotting trends early and turning them into top sellers. In just the past few years, Jazwares has created toy lines based on the popular Youtube channels Cocomelon and Blippi, on a Pokemon game, and on Ultimate Fighting Championship. It's a field in which the key to success is timing and unique promotion. Bet on a trend too early, and nobody buys the toys. Bet too late, and your competitors will beat you to it. In 2020, Jazwares released a new line of toys based on the four members of Blackpink.
The success of Blackpink reminds entertainment executive, Van Toffler, of the rise of NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At the time, Toffler was running MTV, the most popular music cable network in the world, when a few pop groups emerged from what he calls "the Orlando school," a euphemism for "The All-New Mickey Mouse Club," a popular and influential show on The Disney Channel. Bands affiliated with the program ruled the charts of MTV's "Total Request Live," a daily show that was a key barometer of pop stardom.
Like those boy bands, today's K-Pop stars have been put through a rigorous audition and training program. "They can dance and sing, they get along and are great on camera," Toffler said but unlike those boy bands, they are multilingual, which gives them even more global appeal. All of this made Blackpink the perfect opening act for Toffler's new Youtube show, "Released," which highlights the best upcoming music for any given week. The four performers answered questions about their vices and tics.
We have to understand that Blackpink has a global plan on how they reached a wider audience and international recognition to become the biggest girl group in the world. They signed to US-based Interscope Records in late 2018, a direct play for the American market and something no South Korean girl group had tried since Girls' Generation in 2012 (which was a long time ago). They tend to focus more on international promotion rather than a domestic one. Their skill and experience also come into play, Blackpink, no matter what, must always deliver their best when they're performing and they did. Most K-pop-unaware audience at Coachella, hearing the versatility of the group's songs and voice, felt so ecstatic and it was like an experience for them, earning Blackpink a rave review.
The Way Blackpink Build Their Brand
Marketers are all about creating relevant work that reflects the zeitgeist (the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time). Clearly, this is easier said than done. Over the past few years, the pandemic has upended our lives in many ways including how we consume content. While marketers try to figure out how best to engage with consumers in this climate, the world's largest girl band, Blackpink, continues to smash records and capture the hearts of millions around the world.
