Billion Dollar Boyband: How BTS Took the World by Storm #Kpop

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The Boyband that Took the World by Storm

The year was 1964 when an English boyband called The Beatles made their TV debut and changed the world forever, especially the music industry. More than 50 years later, another boy group is doing it again. Meet BTS, a South Korean, 7 member boy band from Seoul.

The group has already sold millions of albums, and also have millions of views on YouTube. Before the crazy year of 2020, they had stadium shows around the world, sold out.

If you’re still not a believer and think this is just another group of attractive young men who are talented singers and dancers that captured that hearts of teens and millennials, get this…

It is estimated that BTS added $3.6 Billion per year in the economy of South Korea, and if you’re still not impressed, they also added $1 more Billion in consumer exports.

South Korea calls their megastars IDOLS, and they are the reason why 1 in every 14 tourists visit the country in 2017. BTS even partnered with Visit Seoul on their tourism campaign.

It is estimated that if BTS can maintain their popularity, they can generate $37 Billion for South Korea over the next decade. But as a K-pop fan, I can tell you there are a lot of K-pop groups in South Korea, and even the most successful groups don’t breakout into the greater world and America like BTS did. So the question is, “How did BTS break the mold in South Korea to reach the top of the charts in the United States?”

Is BTS an Overnight Success?

A resounding NO is the answer to this question. In fact, the group had their debut in 2013. Unless you were already a Kpop fan at that time, you probably only heard of BTS in recent years. The name BTS came from a Korean expression Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates to Bulletproof Boy Scouts. BTS is also a nod to “Beyond The Scenes” which shows how connected that group is to their loyal fandom, collectively known as the ARMY.

What is KPOP?

It’s short for Korean Popular Music. They blend together pop, hip hop, electronic, rock, r&b, and rap. It’s a very cool music genre. I love it. Kpop can be traced back from the early 90’s and rose to popularity in the 2000s. It is now a $5 billion global industry.

A typical Kpop group will have their foothold in South Korea, and then the rest of Asia, before attempting to expand into a global audience. These travels abroad is actually not very good for the group, because it takes away their spotlight in South Korea, which is very precious, and another Kpop group can easily sweep in. Also, for a long time, Kpop Idols depended very much on TV.

What did BTS do that is different from other groups? The answer, they utilized social media to be available and visible to their fans.

BTS Origins

BTS is signed to South Korean entertainment company Big Hit Entertainment, they conducted the auditions that brought the group together.

BTS, as well as all other K-Pop groups, trained and refined their singing and dancing for several years before they can even debut. At this stage, they are called a trainee. These entertainment companies set-up Kpop training. It’s not unusual that a trainee trains for 4-5 years, maybe even more, before they debut. They live and sleep together in this training facilities. It’s almost like this is high school or college for them, especially since these trainees got accepted in auditions when they were kids and teenagers. Not everyone gets to debut, and not every group that debut succeeds, many Kpop groups disband after just a few years.

2 BTS members, Jimin and V, came from the Korean Arts High School in Seoul. This is a private school with many Kpop idols as alumni. However, this school closed in February 2019, unable to keep up with new and stricter laws. There are other performing art schools in South Korea, sometimes called Kpop schools. This is where they practice, polish, and perfect their dance and vocal skills. The BTS boys came from cities and towns all over South Korea through a series of auditions in 2010 and 2011.

Big Hit Entertainment at the Brink of Bankruptcy?

Big Hit Entertainment was at the brink of bankruptcy in 2007. Their financials only turned around with BTS. In 2018, the company profits rose 97% from the prior year, pulling in $57 million. Revenue rose 132% from 2017 to 2018, while the company’s net income rose 105% year over year.

BTS and Social Media

A big credit to this growth is how Big Hit first marketed BTS to the public. Instead of going first to the traditional model of TV music shows, they reached out to a global fandom DIRECTLY through social media. In reverse to every other Kpop group, BTS gained popularity globally first, before they became known in their home country.

Credit to Big Hit, they gave BTS full control of their social media. They were encouraged to livestream practices and their daily lives. The company probably realized that the Korean Wave, including K-Pop, K-Beauty, K-Drama, Movies, Food, and Games became a worldwide trend because of social media. In recent years, the millennials, and now the gen-z, spend a massive amount on time in social media. Massive content has been consumed especially on YouTube, many believe this was the driving force in the Korean Wave.

Non of the individual band members have their individual social media, just one band account. This means their audience was concentrated in one account per platform. As of March 2021, BTS has 20 million followers on Twitter, 38.4 million on Instagram, and 46.1 million subscribers on YouTube.

This massive fanbase, known collectively as the Army, is not concentrated in any single country or region, it’s global. This is a major factor to the success of the group. Big Hit even allowed them to create their own solo music.

BTS Reality Show

BTS first arrived in America 2014. They were part of a South Korean reality tv show titled “BTS: American Hustle Life” that aired on the South Korean network The show centers around the band living in LA, adjusting to western culture, life, and learning rap music from seasoned veterans Warren G. and Coolio.

Later that year, BTS became the youngest artist to perform at Los Angeles K-Con, an annual festival that features the biggest K-Pop Idols. This 2014 K-Con performance garnered a lot of attention for BTS. In 2017, they won their first Billboard Music Award for Top Social Artist. The nominees here are artists that fans engage with the most on the social media. This win was a complete shock to the US media, BTS beating superstar nominees including Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Justin Bieber.

Social media and reality tv really showed how ordinary the daily lives of BTS are. Despite being Kpop Idols, their not that much different from us. The BTS Army watched this everyday. They found out how REAL the boys are, and that is a big part on how they gained this level of popularity. As someone who is frequently on Twitter because of my business, I can tell you BTS still does live streams frequently, and they are on Twitter top 10 trending once every few days.

Success Takes Talent and Hard Work

No amount of publicity and social media can make them as popular as they are without talent. BTS got notoriety with their show stopping music, choreography, and highly stylized music videos. In May 2019 at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, around 100,000 of the BTS Army showed up to see them perform, with a ticket price ranging $55 – 250. It was 2 shows and sales reached over $14 million. Earlier that month at Soldier Field in Chicago, 88,000 of the BTS Army showed up with the same ticket price range. They also did 2 performances pulling in $13.3 million.

Let’s compare that to Taylor Swift who also played at Soldier Field. 105,000 of her fans showed up with a ticket price ranging $50 – $900. It was also 2 performances pulling in $14.5 million. Taylor also performed at Metlife with 165,000 fans with the same ticket price range. It was 3 performances with total sales of $22 million.

First Platinum and First Gold Album

BTS got their first platinum certification in 2018 for the song Mic Drop and their first gold album for Love Yourself Answer. This album debuted number #1 in the Billboard 200 Chart. It was recognized as the best selling album EVER in the South Korea Gaon Album Chart.

The Music of this Generation

While many artists, around the world and not just Kpop, sing about love and a broken heart, BTS sings about identity, confidence, and loving yourself. It is socially conscious music. It is the music of this generation. This message is very important because the Kpop industry had been mired in scandal in recent years.

In early 2019, some prominent Kpop idols got named in an online group sharing sexually explicit videos of women, who were filmed without their knowledge or consent. There are also allegations of rape, sex trade, illegal drug sales, and others, to the point that some BTS Army in Korea do not want to label them as Kpop anymore, they felt that BTS was more than that, bigger than that. BTS partnered with UNIFCEF to campaign against violence towards children and teens around the world.

Breaking Records / Breaking Grounds

BTS was the first Kpop group to perform in Saturday Night Live. Their album titled Be debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with with 177,000 sales, becoming their fifth number-one album in the U.S. BTS became the fastest group to earn five number-one albums since The Beatles, it’s always a good day if you’re being compared to The Beatles.

BTS also became the first group to have two chart-topping albums in the USA in 2020, and the second act overall following YoungBoy Never Broke Again. The lead single “Life Goes On” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 with 150,000 downloads and 14.9 million U.S. streams. This is the 3rd number-one song of BTS following “Dynamite” and “Savage Love (Laxed Siren Beat) remix”.

Other Kpop groups target mainly Southeast Asia and China, BTS targeted the US market directly. The group had collaborated with music superstars in America, including Nicki Minaj, Ed Sheeran, Halsey, and Steve Aoki.

By the way, BTS is not just taking the music industry by storm. Toys, apparel, and cosmetic brands are all partnering with BTS, taking benefit from their global audience. BTS also partnered with big brands like Coca Cola, Puma, Converse, and Hyundai. They also collaborated with Funko with a set of 7 Funko Pops.

According to an interview I watched of Funko CEO Brian Mariotti, they found out BTS is leading in all social media engagement, ahead of even Game of Thrones and Marvel at the height of their success. Even they were surprised. They had a toy fair were the most shared toy on social media was the BTS Funko, beating out everybody. You may not know but almost everything that has some notoriety in pop culture has a Funko Pop. They also saw the diversity in the demographic of the Kpop fan, as well as how Kpop merch is successful in both on-line and in person retailers, especially the BTS brand.

BTS Music

The group has been prolific in releasing new music. They have released 6 studio albums and 6 EP’s since 2014. BTS is the only band, since The Beatles, to hit 3 number one albums in less than a year.