By Kim Jae-kyoung, Chung Min-uck
K-pop has swept through Asia and is now spreading in the West. A successful concert by SM Entertainment, “SM Town Live World Tour,” drew some 7,000 European fans at its first event in Paris and seems to prove that the magic is starting to work in Western markets too.
It is too early to say the Korean music business has successfully entered the Western market since, as in many cases in the past, it could be just a passing fad. It still remains to be seen whether the interest will be sustainable.
Over the past decades, many Korean artists and musicians have tried to make forays into Western markets but most of them ended without fruition due to various reasons, such as cultural differences and language barriers.
While many have failed in their attempts to go abroad, there is only one Korean performance that has been accepted and loved by the world in a sustainable manner. It is NANTA, a non-verbal performance that integrates Korea’s traditional rhythm, Samulnori, with comedy and drama in a kitchen. It was the first show from Asia to hit New York’s Broadway, which highlighted the potential of a Korean performance to the world.
The successful globalization of NANTA provides important messages not only to K-pop artists and CEOs of entertainment businesses but also to Korean conglomerates that are stepping up efforts to increase their presence in global markets.
According to Song Seung-hwan, CEO of PMC Production and producer of NANTA, there are three key elements to ensure success in globalization ― a clear goal and strategy, universality and originality. With the absence of even one of the three, a business cannot be sustainable, he said.
The first lesson from NANTA is that you have to set a clear goal from the very beginning. NANTA was born with the aim of making it to Broadway.
“From the planning stages, NANTA was designed to target a global audience. The goal was to produce a show not only for the domestic market but also for the global one. NANTA was planned, produced, and born with the goal of reaching Broadway,” Song said in an interview with Business Focus at his office at COEX in southern Seoul.
If he had developed NANTA without a global vision from the beginning, the show would not have been successful. His idea to create a musical for a global audience was inspired as the size of the domestic market was too limited for entertainment businesses to survive, he said.
NANTA has successfully entered the Western market. It made its international debut in 1999 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, England, and in 2004 NANTA successfully landed on Broadway. NANTA has attracted audiences of 6 million around the world.
The 54-year-old producer stressed that the struggle of K-pop and Korean movies in the United States and other Western markets is due mainly to the fact that they are lacking in universality that can be shared with Westerners.
“For a cultural product to be successful, you need two factors. One is originality and the other is universality,” he said. “K-pop has its uniqueness but lacks in the level of universality. Composers of Girls’ Generation’s songs are not Koreans. They are Europeans.”
Song says that unlike other Korean cultural products which only have originality, NANTA has universality that helps people across the globe empathize with it, which was the key reason for NANTA gaining global popularity.
To improve the universality of the show, Song developed ideas to make the show non-verbal and selected the kitchen as its main setting. It is a completely non-verbal performance that is presented purely through music and motion, which helped overcome language barriers.
“Many people believe that what made NANTA successful globally was Samulnori and percussion. But, I don’t think so. I think the success came from the fact that the musical has universality that even people from different cultures can appreciate,” he said.
“Specifically speaking, the setting of the musical is a kitchen. Chefs are in the kitchen preparing dishes. Regardless of cultural backgrounds, people are familiar with the kitchen. And stage costumes that the actors wear are also the same (all over the world) _ white top hats and clothing. I think this universality lets the audience be more attracted to the performance.”
A cultural product is different from a manufactured item. But from a sales perspective, they have something in common. For a cultural product, globalization means selling intangible values to overseas markets, while for a manufactured one, it is the sale of tangible goods.
In that regard, Korean companies seeking to make inroads into overseas markets should take a lesson from NANTA. First of all, they should set a clear goal and strategy of which markets they will target. Second, when developing a product, they should make efforts to embed both originality and universality into them.
Korea’s large companies or conglomerates are jumping on the bandwagon of “hallyu” or Korean wave by beefing up efforts for cultural marketing. They see the importance of emotional marketing and are trying to use the nation’s cultural icons to move the hearts of people from different countries.
“Korean firms have been making use of the Korean wave. Samsung and LG should thank Korea’s actors and singers who are leading the Korean wave. What has driven up the value of “made in Korea” is Korean drama and music,” Song said.
He criticized Korean firms for balking at investing in the culture industry, saying that such investments can be a win-win solution.
“Although they are benefiting a lot from the rise of Korean culture in Asia through culture marketing, they rarely invest in such businesses. I hope that Korean firms will invest more,” he said.
“In order to develop a product like NANTA, the basis for culture should be sound. In fact, I could not imagine creating NANTA without Samulnori. I can say that I was able to hatch the idea as a result of Samulnori being handed down through history.”