BTS is a colossus of K-pop
How the branding genius of BTS has built a merchandising empire that spans the globe
They are one of South Korea’s biggest exports — with ticket sales, music downloads and merchandise racking up a reported US$4.65 billion last year, accounting for a sizable 0.3 per cent slice of their country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
In 2019, BTS, or Beyond the Scene, a seven-member boy band, became the first group since The Beatles to earn three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in less than a year. But once again, the band was shut out of the Grammys on music’s biggest night, without even a single nomination.
Still, BTS has left its mark on the global music industry.
“People will buy anything they touch,” said Paul Han, co-founder of the Korean pop news site Allkpop.com, which has 10 million monthly readers worldwide.
The band has built a merchandising and endorsement empire on a scale not seen in Western pop music — drawing on a commanding social media presence to reach millions of young, global consumers.
Their new album, Map of the Soul: 7, released Feb. 21 and has sold more than three million copies in South Korea alone. It hit No. 1 in the U.S., and is the largest debut of 2020 to date.
With BTS at the height of its popularity, the band could be at a turning point.
Its members — who range between 22 and 27 years old — must enlist for compulsory military service before they turn 28, in accordance with South Korean law, which could put their careers on hold for about 24 months — essentially taking them out in their prime.
“As a Korean, it’s natural, and someday, when duty calls, we’ll be ready to respond and do our best,” Kim Seok-jin, known as Jin, the oldest member at 27, said on CBS’S Sunday Morning recently.
For now, they are “enjoying the ride,” BTS leader Kim Nam-joon, or RM, said in the same interview.
With their mix of pop, hiphop, R&B and electronica, BTS’S drawing power for their tours ranks with Taylor Swift, One Direction and Beyoncé. Like them, they were able to sell out London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium — except they did it in 90 minutes.
Last year, their tour crashed Ticketmaster’s website, selling 300,000 tickets in minutes, at an average price of $452 per seat.
They have arguably been even more successful in building a merchandising and endorsement empire that extends far beyond the typical tour T-shirts.
“They kind of reached the point where everything about them simply works, whether that’s merchandise, concerts, albums, singles or streaming,” said Youngdae Kim, a Korean Music Awards committee member and author of the book, BTS The Review. “I think it’s one of those rare moments for an artist’s career, where everything surrounding the artist simply works and makes money and more money.”
Behind BTS’S success is their record label, Big Hit Entertainment, a privately held company with an estimated worth between $1.08 billion and $2.07 billion, according to the Hyundai Research Institute (HRI).
Composer Bang Si-hyuk, known as the Hitman, started Big Hit in
... Everything about them simply works, whether that’s merchandise, concerts, albums, singles or streaming.
2005 after working at another top label, JYP. Years before Psy’s Gangnam Style was a worldwide hit in 2012, breaking two billion Youtube views, JYP was pushing K-pop to a crossover Western audience with Wonder Girls. The girl group was the first Korean act to chart, reaching 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 for Nobody in 2008 and opening for the Jonas Brothers in 2009.
“At the time that I started my company, physical album sales were abruptly going down and digital sales were not coming up to compensate,” Bang told Time magazine.
“But K-pop idol groups had an advantage, in that they had many opportunities to diversify revenue streams and their fans were extremely passionate, allowing concerts to compensate for the dropped album sales.”
Big Hit soon surpassed other major players in the industry, overtaking SM Entertainment, worth $1.3 billion, JYP at $788 million and YG at $492 million, according to HRI.
Bang assembled BTS through auditions: a boy band built like the Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync. Many started as teens, hailing from across South Korea.
Underground rapper RM was signed first in 2010 and became the group’s leader.
Then came another underground rapper, Min Yoon-gi (Suga), that same year; and later dancers Jung Ho-seok (J-hope), Jeon Jung-kook (Jungkook), Park Ji-min (Jimin); plus singer Kim Tae-hyung (V) and actor Jin.
“We really started at the bottom. When we first started, no one paid attention to us,” RM said on CNN, adding the group lived in the same house. “We sometimes argue from time to time.
“We know how to deal with it and how to learn from each other. We have a very special bond.”
Beyond using social media power to sell products, BTS is promoting causes, too. The group campaigned for UNICEF to end violence against children and spoke at the U.N. General Assembly in 2018.
Their campaign raised $2.3 million and “helped young people open up about their own experiences of violence and bullying and encouraged love and kindness, online and off-line,” said Gmin Seo of the corporate partnership and philanthropy team at UNICEF Korea.
As the band prepares to go on tour, and eventually into the military, they are unveiling a global art project promoting diversity, love and care, called Connect BTS, in London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul and New York. One installation, a hot-air balloon made of recycled plastic bags, will travel from the U.K. to South Korea.
For fans like Imelda Ibarra, the founder of BTS’S U.S. fan group U.S. BTS ARMY, that message is more important than merchandise.
“It sucks, and I will absolutely miss them,” Ibarra said of their required military service. “It’s something they have to do and I’m ready for it, but what I always tell people, what is the amazing thing about BTS, that even if they’re not here, they left us with an amazing message that can continue on ... It’s timeless, to love yourself, speak for yourself and be true to who you are.”