K-pop and K-car: The underpinnings of 21st century Korean cultural/industrial successes

Purpose: The 21st century has witnessed an explosive growth of both South Korean popular culture (K-pop) and automobiles (K-car) in Western societies. However, K-pop appears to maintain its success better than K-car. This paper will evaluate the origins of K-pop and K-car and determine the distinguishing factors that led to continued K-pop compared to K-car success. Design/methodology/approach: Suggested claims of artistic/cultural and social/industrial traditions unique to South Korea as causes of the growth in K-pop and K-car success in literature will be evaluated based on historical growth in sales of both products in the US market. Factors of continued success will be evaluated based on how well both industries have been able to maintain their (perceived) brand authenticity, which emphasizes ‘Korean’ cultural values. Findings: Unlike claims regarding the importance of traditional culture in shaping business success in emergent states, this paper shows that the success of Korean music and cars is not due to artistic/cultural values. Rather, while optimally identifying progress within industries such as digitization in music, South Korea’s unique ability is to deploy its industrial machinery to transform bolder performances and designs originating elsewhere into inoffensive forms with broad cross-cultural appeal. Especially, K-pop’s continued success can be explained through better attention to perceived authenticity, without distinguishing its products too much from known, Western perspectives. Results also indicate that Korean products do not perform well when companies attempt to take on a leadership role in the industry or develop bold new designs that deviate strongly from Western principles. Originality/Value: The paper provides unique insights in the similarity of product design and branding, providing tools for evaluating perceived authenticity of a brand and its potential impact on sales. It shows that attention to traditional cultural values may not be a (sufficiently) appropriate strategy for international success. From a Central European perspective, lessons learned by the Korean car and culture industries may lead to new strategic uses of branding and marketing local products and of different forms of governmental/industrial structures to emerge out of the periphery

Converting nascent technologies into mainstream sports

Although technology is an important aspect of every type of sport, only some sports are so dependent on technology that they could not exist without strong financial and technological contributions of other businesses seeing benefits in sponsoring teams. One such sport originated at the end of the 19th century: motorsports. Roughly a century later, another sport strongly dependent on technology started its rise: e-sports. To maintain interest in these sports, there continues to be a need to make the technology attractive to the general public. As e-sports’ popularity is soaring, it is of interest to reflect on which factors played a role in this rise in popularity, how they continue to influence e-sports’ popularity and to what extent they compare to early factors involved in raising the popularity of motorsports. The paper will show that, for both motorsports and e-sports, the real drivers to develop these technologies into mainstream sports did not arise from the athletes nor from industries directly benefitting from enhanced public exposure to these sports. Rather, media and other industries attempting to reach out to specific consumer communities and looking to remain modern were strongly involved in evolving both types of sports into their current popularity. Based on the effects of media portrayal of the popularity of motorsports throughout its history, the paper identifies several contemporary issues e-sports will need to resolve in order to maintain its popularity