What Kind of KPOP Is Most Popular and How It Achieves a Success in Taiwan

1. Why I choose this topic

-KPOP’s background

l High album sales

The sales of KPOP albums have become higher and higher in recent years. During the pandemic, the sales reach its peak although there are less chances for fans to meet their idols. The graphic shows that the total sales of the highest selling albums are 54594222 in 2021. If each album is 500 dollars, then the companies earn almost 3 hundred billion in 2021. Even the revenue of album sales has not included the other revenue from concert, endorsement, and so on yet. Due to its high revenue, I want to know why it is so successful.

l Great influence

In recent years, the influence of KPOP culture gradually shows. Take the attitude of western people as example. KPOP groups are invited to take a speech in important occasion, to participate in the concert that seldom invite Korean. These are all the evidence that KPOP starts to be an influential trend in the world.

2.What is their specialty?

-Difference with idol culture of other countries

l Complete concept

Unlike groups from other countries, KPOP develops a trend that most groups have their own special concept. The form of elements they use are very various. Animals, colors, the zodiac, and planets are all common concepts. Their album’s concepts are always related to their main concept. However, I cast a vote about this, but the ones who feel hard to understand KPOP’s concept are a little more than the other side. Most of the ones who feel hard to understand are people that seldom follow KPOP, and most of the ones feel interested are KPOP fans. From this difference, I think the complete concept may attract the one who has already loved KPOP, but not the one who didn’t like it originally.

l Successful marketing

In addition to their popularity, the marketing is the other reason why the revenue of selling albums is so high. The company will put random photocards in the album and release many forms to make fans buy more. To collect all kinds of the albums and photocards, the fans will buy tens of albums to achieve it. Besides, after the overbreak of the pandemic, the companies develop a new way to earn money. The fans can have the chance to make a video call with idols by buying albums. To make it more possible to get the chance, fans will buy many albums to increase their possibility of getting the chance. The two factors are the main reasons why the sales of albums increase during the pandemic.

3.Which is the most successful?

-The most popular style

After analyzing their strategies of sales, I want to know what kind of KPOP can attract more fans, and I make a small survey to investigate what kind of style will be the most popular. Among 21 people, the style that over half of people like is “girl crush”. The trend is also obvious that we can find the success of famous girl group, Blackpink. They actually achieve a big success in Taiwan that both themselves and their songs are popular. The second place is “sexy”, and third place is purity. It indicates the trend changes in recent years. A group famous for purity, like “Girl’s generation” , is popular and was the main trend ten years ago. However, most of the popular girl groups now are girl crush style rather than pure style. The result is surprising to me because it seems that purity is no longer popular than it was.

Besides, there is a special thing that fans from western tend to like girl crush more. Take “Loona” and “Dreamcatcher” as examples. The two groups are both popular in the countries except for South Korea. I think it may be because of the culture. The western seems to prefer girl crush rather than other styles. Due to this reason, many groups start to change their original style to make a success in western market.

4. How do they meet with success?

-What will attract you to follow a KPOP group?

Among my survey, I want to know what can make people want to know more about a group. People may pay attention due to some specific reason, and eventually fall in love with it. I choose popular songs, members from my country, scandals, and good-looks as the options. Among 24 people, 15 choose popular songs as the factor that will attract them. I think it is reasonable because there are many groups who go viral with their songs. Like “Gee”, “Nobody”, and “Bang Bang Bang”, the singers achieve a huge success by these popular songs. Then option of a good-look member is voted by 8 people, which is the second place. “Szuyu” is a successful example that many people start to know TWICE because of her beauty. Besides, I find that most of the people voting this are the ones who have already followed KPOP. So, if the groups want to attract the one that doesn’t like KPOP, having a popular song is more useful. Subsequently, scandals and members from my country get 1 and 0 votes respectively. Although scandals seem cannot make people interested in one group through my survey, I think it is a new trend recently. A month ago, I saw the scandals of one member and the controversy became more serious and more serious with more and more evidence. However, also due to the topicality, some who don’t follow this group at first start to know them, some even become fans. So, I think the percentage of people that will be attracted by scandals may be more than I receive in my survey. As for members from my country, it does not surprise me because there are many Taiwanese in Korean groups now, but they are still not popular in Taiwan. So, nationality is not influential at all.

5. Conclusion

KPOP culture actually makes success in many countries, and it also has many advantages that are worth being learned. Recently, we can also find many similar elements or ideas in Taiwan’s entertainment industry. KPOP’s trend is becoming more and more popular, but the companies never stop developing new ways to earn more money. No one knows when the eventual peak of KPOP will come, and I think it will continue to boom for at least ten more years.

Work Cited

Ha, Sophie. “Who Sold the Most Albums? How Many Total Albums Were Sold in 2021? The Album Sales Review for 2021 by Gaon Chart.” Allkpop, 24 Dec. 2021, https://www.allkpop.com/article/2021/12/who-sold-the-most-albums-how-many-total-albums-were-sold-in-2021-the-album-sales-review-for-2021-by-gaon-chart.