Hello everyone~ The Music Industry Forum that is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Creative Content Agency was opened on Thursday in 'Musistance' in Mapogu.

The topic of the third Music Industry Forum was “The examples and strategies of global expansion of Korean music industry”.

This article is especially written for all readers who likes K-pop!

Actually, the topic of this Music Industry Forum was not only K-pop, but it had two other important issues, which are Korean indie music and Korean musical industry.

The first session presentation was about the ‘The music of Idols and their advance to abroad’, and it was presented by the public relations manager of Cube Entertainment Ms. Ahn Hyojin.

The artists who work under Cube Entertainment include well-known artists such as Beast, 4Minute, Rain, G.NA, B2B and comedian Kiri Kim, and I am quite sure you know many of these artists!

Firstly, Ms. Ahn started by telling examples of the overseas expansion of K-pop stars since the end of 2000s until 2013, and the most remarkable points were:

1. The fact that the tours in Europe as well as in North and South America got more frequent.

2. The need to divide the foreign market into separate targets, and establishment of local strategy promotion.

3. The search for methods to expand the K-pop market (use of collaboration strategy of diverse contents)

4. Vitalisation of K-pop blog through SNS and Youtube which has led to search for even more various channels of visibility.

Cube Entertainment Official YouTube Channel

Ms. Ahn said that actually, it is not so long time ago when the idea of world tours was not common, but these days having a world tour is considered just natural, however instead of having a tour in several countries, they are mainly targeting the countries that have potential value.

United Cube tour in London picture - from Google Image

Amongst Ms. Ahns presentation one thing that made me impressed was the fact that when United Cube had performances in the UK, the Reuters News Agency reported “If you look at the Korean idols, they all look the similar as if they had come out of one factory, and they sing similar songs, and also it seems that there are parts of the training that are being standardized”.

However, at the time when that report came out, Ms. Ahn said that the Cube Entertainment answered to the critique as following “There are many parts in the training that is learned according to certain way, the songs are not similar, but the genre of the song and the concept are different and made to match the speciality of each artist. Also, we are working hard in order to get out of the stereotyped image. The company wil make sure to change the opinions of the public in the future, and thus will show more actively the differentiated image and the individual brand of each artist”.

In addition, Ms. Ahn said that the company is working hard so that the fans will keep liking the artist, and instead of clinging into the first performance, even in a smaller country, we want to leave an impactful expression.

Ms. Ahn brought up an example of finding a new K-pop market; A group of fans from Sweden made a Youtube video showing their passion towards Cube Entertainment artists and sent it to straight to the company which responded that it seems that they will be able to have a world tour in Scandinavia too. She also said that as a result of the active participation of the fans like this, the company plans to enter new markets in order to satisfy even more fans around the world.

Ms. Ahn suggested a direction that K-pop could direct for a possible continuous successful overseas expansion:

Development from the viewpoint of business – establishing growth system: Instead of aggressive marketing, there is a need for global insight.

Individual brand of each artist: Strategist targeting promotion.

Fostering of global talents, completing a model that enables multinational cooperation: For example, people from other countries such as Thailand and the UK come to Korea to see the Cube entertainment's artist training system how they can develop potential artists with their own training process.

Most important point however, seems to be the building up the individual brand of the artists. For example, when expanding overseas the language acts as a charming and unique element. Because these days the language is a basic equipment as well, the fostering of global talents is important.

And so the first part ended like this.

The second presentation delivered by Hyeongkun Kim who is the Director of Jambiani Korean indie metal band was titeled as “The example of overseas expansion of indie music”.

Have you heard of group called Jambinai? Actually, I didn’t know about it before going to the Glastonbury Festival in 2014.

At that time I came across Jambinai for the first time, and I found out that they make fusion music of Korean traditional music and rock.

Image from - Naver Music On Stage

Jambinai is has performed in various festivals abroad, and is strengthening their position in the music market.

Especially, I felt that in the Glastonbury Festival the most notable thing is that the English listeners were very curious about the instruments Jambinai played during their performance.

I guess it must be because the traditional Korean instruments such as piri, taepyeongso, haegeum and geomungo make a sound that is impossible to produce with Western instruments, many of the listeners had reactions such as ‘Oh? ‘I have never heard anything like this before! What kind of instrument is that?’.

Image from - Naver Music On Stage

Also, the most remarkable strength of Jambinai is the unique sound that is made with the combination of traditional Korean instruments and Western instruments, and I think that is the reason behind the shine of Jambinai in the World Music Festival.

However, how did Jambinai get popular and started to perform overseas?

The reason behind Jambinai’s success is no other than strategy that consists of actively utilizing various performance, music and art markets both in Korea and overseas.

Jambinai performed in various music markets such as Seoul Art Market, Seoul International Music Fair, World Music Expo and Sound of the City, and in those markets numerous buyers heard Jambinai’s music and decided to support them.

It seems that this kind of strategy that utilizes the performance, music and art markets is indeed the best way to introduce Korean indie music to the world.

Director Kim also told about the two situations when overseas expand can fail, including immigration procedures such as visas and legal counselling support about the contracts.

He emphasized the fact that in Korea the professional legal counselling about these difficulties that the artists face in order to expand overseas is insufficient.

I think that the most important step is to solve this kind of problems urgently in order to help the Korean indie music artists to expand overseas more effectively.

It is a fact that K-pop centred music industry is very popular and constantly receives attention, but I really wish that Korean indie bands could get more visibility overseas, because there are many good artists amongst the indie groups as well, and there are even artists that have not been able to show their talents yet.

For this to happen, the environment should become more concentrated on the music in order to give a chance to the artists who compose the music for themselves.

After the break, the third session continued with Lecturer Won Jongwon’s presentation about “The support for the strengthening of Korean music industry’s expansion overseas”.

Lecturer Won’s presentation concentrated on musicals.

Firstly, he talked about the current situation of the overseas expansion of Korean musicals. He also said that after the 2010s the overseas expansion of musicals is quickly transforming, and is focused in the Asian countries, and especially China and Japan where the musicals are being performed are the most important markets for Korean the overseas expansion of musicals.

Quite surprisingly, he told that the musicals made in Korea such as ‘Gangwhamun Sonata’, ‘Palace’, ‘Run to You’, ‘The Goddess is watching’ are being performed in Japan!

Japanese version poster

In addition to this, Lecturer Won showed examples of the performances that are also exported, and the Japanese and Chinese language versions are being produced.

However, it is important to examine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Korean musical overseas expansion.

The added value of the Korean Wave is at its peak, and assuming that there are profits from the high price musical tickets and there is a stable consumer group, and the good image of Korean culture is increasing, there is an opportunity for the musical industry, however,

The Korean musical market still is concentrated on the profits rather than making the musicals, and problems such as lack of production manpower and biased production cost structure to the actors and actresses do not allow the musical industry to overcome the lack of financial support and promotion policies.

In order for Korea to take more active role in the overseas expansion, this is a problem that needs to be solved.

Lecturer Won said that the issue of making more Korean musicals has been discussed repeatedly since the early 2010s, but it is still difficult to make successful musicals in Korea.

Actually, if you look into the matter there are lots of musicals made in Korea, but the fact is that most people do not know about them is really a shame.

After listening to the lecture, I realized that in order to make successful musicals, a significant amount of professional knowledge and financial investment is needed.

Maybe if there was more support from the Government to diverse areas this could be possible.

If one says “Korean Music Industry” many people will often think about K-pop. The Music Industry Forum gives a chance for the various artists and genres to expand overseas, and instead of the trend of Korean Wave that is limited only to K-pop, the value of Korean Wave is predicted to be able to grow and expand even further.

Of course, it is a fact that it will take time until the Korean Wave will be more diverse, but if the fans of Korean culture keep their interest up, cheer for their idols, and continue to show their love towards Korea, definitely there will be positive effects to the system resulting that the overseas fans will also be more diverse, and everyone can soon enjoy more differentiated Korean music.

Korean by Choi Yoo Kyung and English translations by Nora Maaniemi for the Korea Blog