Course:ASIA150/Blackpink's Global Takeover
Introduction & Background
A South Korean girl group created by YG Entertainment, the four members Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo and Rosé are performers that specialize in pop-music and dancing. Each member was selected from a rigorous set of global tryouts, and put through five years of full-time training from 2011 to 2016. As the current top performing girl-group in the world, Blackpink has set impressive records in the entertainment industry. Now, Blackpink has debuted many award winning singles and albums, merchandise lines, and different forms of media (tv shows, advertisements, etc). Blackpink's 28 million+ followers (or, known as "Blinks") on Spotify represent one of the largest fan bases in the world.
Economic Impacts
Even as a South Korean-based entertainment group, Blackpink has enjoyed profound influence in markets across the globe. Their consumer base exhibits incredibly unique, promising behaviour that many analysts in business are reviewing.
Wooten, J. J., Geerling, W., & Calma, A. (2021). Diversifying the use of pop culture in the classroom: Using K-pop to teach principles of economics. International Review of Economics Education, 38, 100220. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388021000128is an in-depth research paper and teaching guide analyzing the economic trends and models that Blackpink is a part of. It concludes a new age of entertainment and pop culture spearheaded by groups like Blackpink. (EL)
Adisak, S. (2022). The influence of customer expectations, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and customer brand loyalty on customer purchasing intentions: A case study of K-POP fans in Thailand. African Journal of Business Management, 16(1), 1–9. https://academicjournals.org/journal/AJBM/article-abstract/15EF34668457. This is a business analysis of Blackpink customer loyalty in Thailand, specifically emphasizing the importance of celebrity endorsement in brands. Blackpink fans, or, ‘Blinks’, are an incredibly loyal consumer base. (EL)
McIntyre, H. (2021, October 4). Blackpink’s Lisa Proved She Was A Sales Powerhouse In America When She First Debuted Her Solo Hits. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2021/10/04/blackpinks-lisa-proved-she-was-a-sales-powerhouse-in-america-when-she-first-debuted-her-solo-hits/?sh=2cadd1845b50While this article is incomplete in its information regarding the rest of Blackpink and slightly inaccurate on the cultural context of the group, it provides information on Lisa’s (a Blackpink member) record breaking sales in America, not Blackpink’s country of origin, but the country that hosts the largest share of ‘Blinks’. (EL)
Regardless of their success in global markets, however, they have also been under scrutiny for orienting their content towards western markets, angering asian consumers. 如何评价BLACKPINK的粉丝BLINK. (2018, August 16). 如何评价BLACKPINK的粉丝BLINK？ - 知乎. Zhihu.com. https://www.zhihu.com/question/290530095is an forum on the deliberate westernization of Blackpink style and content, meant to cater towards viewers in North America–as a Korean company, YG entertainment understands their overseas obligations. (EL)
Cultural Impacts
Blackpink, directly, has modified the ways in which Korean/Asian culture and nation-states interact with each other.
Kurniawan, Budi. Tiktok Popularism and Nationalism: Rethinking National Identities and Boundaries on Millennial Popular Culture in Indonesian Context. Syiah Kuala University, 2017. K-pop songs and dances, including those from Blackpink, dominate the Indonesian Tiktok landscape. Korean influences and ideals are pushed towards the young generation of Indonesians who are the main users of Tiktok. It is an academic paper from the proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference on Social Sciences at Syiah Kuala University in Indonesia. http://202.4.186.66/AICS-Social/article/view/12649/9756 (JL)
China has even been using K-Pop as a negotiation tool in geopolitical conflict (South China Sea dispute has caused them to effectively ban K-Pop in the country, specifically referencing Blackpink) The Blackpink effect: K-pop’s global branding power extends to beauty. (2020, October 26). Glossy. https://www.glossy.co/beauty/the-blackpink-effect-k-pops-global-branding-power-extends-to-beauty/ (EL)
Zhao, J. J., & Zhao, J. J. (08/2021). Blackpink queers your area: The global queerbaiting and queer fandom of K-pop female idols Taylor & Francis. doi:10.1080/14680777.2021.1959373 is a UBC based-source that underlines the newly developed phenomena of queerbaiting revolutionized in media, specifically lesbian queerbaiting in Blackpink. (EL)
Janet W. Lee, Blackpink to Play Livestreamed Concert on YouTube This Month, 2 December 2020. Blackpink performed their album “The Album” for the first time virtually on YouTube. The performance was live streamed and increased momentum for live streaming entertainment culture which has started to overtake pre recorded videos. The article explains purchase options, and about how the expensive option gives users more behind the scenes content and emojis. This article is from a Variety article which can be accessed via the UBC Online Library, can be downloaded as a pdf and can be read out. (JL)
Fashion
Finally, Blackpink has also taken the fashion industry by storm. Each member represents a major brand, and is obligated to wear clothing (publicly) exclusively from those brands (Chanel, Givenchy, Moschino etc). Each item they post majorly influences sales for that product.
Okwodu, Janelle. Fashion Fell for Blackpink in 2021. Vogue December 31, 2021. This article details the numerous brand deals the members of Blackpink have acquired and also which brands they have become global ambassadors for. It also gives a rundown of their most iconic looks in 2021 and contains many photos showcasing their outfits from their Instagrams. This article is an online article from Vogue https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/blackpink-best-fashion-moments-2021, and contains links to more information including Jisoo’s appearance at Dior’s fashion show in Greece, Rosé at the Met Gala and her Tiffany and Co. brand deal. (JL)
u/StarOfDayxox on r/unpopularkpopopinions, 2 years ago, https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularkpopopinions/comments/j0azco/ros%C3%A9s_styling_has_become_the_most_stale_and_the/ This post shares a fan's point of view of how the member's affiliations with high fashion has forced them to dress in a way that does not complement their group's aesthetic, especially Rosé. There is a comment section where you can view other peoples opinions on the post and you can upvote or downvote the post and comments. This post was made on the subreddit r/unpopularkpopopinions, where people post controversial opinions about K-pop and each post has a poll where people can vote to whether the opinion is popular, unpopular or unsure. The post gets locked if the moderators think the opinion is "too popular". (JL)
Chitrakorn, Kati. Forget Hollywood. There’s a new global brand ambassador. Brands are using K-pop stars as brand ambassadors now instead of models or Hollywood celebrities. It explores how relationships between brands and ambassadors have evolved. K-pop groups such as Blackpink have very loyal and involved fan bases which is very appealing to brands. This article was found from Vogue Business https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/forget-hollywood-new-global-luxury-brand-ambassadors-bts-blackpink (JL)
Chung, Ji Won. How Blackpink’s Jennie became K-pop’s fashion queen: from ‘Human Chanel’ to Boucheron muse and that viral hairpin look - 4 times the Korean idol proved she’s a serious style icon lists out Jennie’s influence on the fashion world. It includes links to her Instagram, photos of her and also fan Twitter accounts. Analyzes her persona and why it fits luxury fashion.
Who Is Your BLACKPINK Fashion Icon? | BLACKPINK: Light Up The Sky | Netflix includes interviews and behind the scenes looks at Blackpink's fashion. The video is in both English and Korean with English subtitles for the Korean portions. The video is from Netflix's documentary about black pink. (JL)
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Professional Achievements
Finally, Blackpink has broken records not only as an Asian entertainment group, not only as female performers, but as momentous achievements by any performer or entertainer.
List of Awards and Nominations. (2017). BLACK PINK Wiki. https://black-pink.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Awards_and_Nominations is crowd-sourced and written exclusively by members of Blackpink’s Wiki fandom circles. Its affordances range from links to internal and external pages, potential submissions and additions to the page for review, a comment section, a table of contents, and various other organizational/navigational affordances. The wiki page lists all of Blackpink’s nominations and awards since their inception in 2016, an impressive range. (EL)