The shift between Le sserafim and Newjeans main market and how they marketed by their company under Hybe

    It is clear that both of these groups have separate markets before and early their debuts days obviously to not overlapped with each other. Lsf will be focus towards the international market, particularly in Japan and the West while Nj will be focusing their market domestically. Their concept alone proves this. We used to be in era where girl-teen crush was the only way to achieve international success at the time.


    But now, both of this group kinda promoted opposite to what I expected. I'm not truly invested in these two groups but this is how I see them.


    Lsf mostly promoting in Korea and to some extent Japan. The group has appeared on numerous variety shows and YT shows in Korea (I believe they are among the most active 4th gg in variety right now). Eunchae has been the MC for Music Bank, and they have even appeared on the SWF2.


    While Newjeans not really appears in local variety shows but were sent to few major festivals (Lollapalooza, Super sonic, and few upcoming festivals too). The group also have their own line friends pop up store and few global brand deals promotion like coke and MCD in few countries.


    It is interesting to see how the market of both of these two group kinda change even though not that much. I do slightly feel like Lsf is kinda like Twice and Nj is kinda like BP in term of their promotion and target market now.

    Lesserafim is still quite popular in the west. Imo, promoting lsrf domestically now is a smart move. They were being mocked by knetizen when there was a post saying nj ive and lsrf are top 3 4th gen GGs. Knetizens generally dislike lsrf (because of garam scandal, sakura issue etc). It is also quite evidenced on the korean charting, lsrf is the weaker one among the top 5. It is sensible for Soumu/hybe to push for more domestic presence. No point if u sell well abroad but flop at domestic. Too soon to be twice 2.0, it is just their 2nd year+


    Newjeans obviously outdid hybe initial expectation. So yeah, they managed to venture into the west at much earlier stage. Domestic market already place NJ at GOD tier. So domestic promotions are not heavily required, take the effort to promote in the west is wise move



    Edit: i personally think after departure of Garam + the group now made up of 2/5 japanese member, lsrf will have HARD time to be the top 1/2 GG in korea. Just hope that they can stay in the top5 and dont fall out (unforgiven charting was kinda disappointing tbh)


    LSRFM is in 5th place in Korea behind Idle, Ive, Aespa and NJ. OTOH, they're the only ones to have a truly viral B side hit, something none of the others can claim. Bluebeard's "official" video came out only after it became clear that it was rocketing up the charts.


    I dont think LSRFM's main target was Korea at all. It was Japan. They were more of a sexy concept with the model runway stuff in the beginning. They wanted Minju who was hugely popular in Japan amongst Wizones and then grabbed Kazuha. Even now, they spend like half their time traveling to Japan doing all sorts of promo there.


    New Jeans was the Korean/Western group with 50 percent English speakers (Minji is pretty darn proficient, not fluent, but good enough to count as half an English speaker) and their music seems to be much more Western sounding with the stripped down sound i generally despise. Plus their music videos werent anything like typical Kpop videos where all you see are the idols performing in front of a green screen, which is what LSRFM was. NJ videos had storylines which is way more Western, with prominent foreign love interests, and just having so many foreign actors in general was very unique.

    Twice and BP are similar. They both try to spend as little time as possible in Korea, because the more time they spend in Korea the less money they make.


    BP have been the same since debut, but Twice deliberately at high risk moved away from the cute tween songs around 2.5-3 years after debut, and Korea started to lose interest in them. They were nowhere for a couple of years, but only in the last 2-3 years have been doing massive concerts worldwide.


    NJ seem to be pushing Western markets more, and have 2 fluent English speakers, as possibly their team sees more rapid growth there. Conversely LSF seem to be pushing into Japan more currently.

    imo both are still promoting and spending 70% of their time in Korea, but this will drop significantly in the next couple of years, just like with Twice and BP.

    Quote from BlackpinkHouse

    Bluebeard's "official" video came out only after it became clear that it was rocketing up the charts.

    Nah, lsrfm already doing this since debut. They always doing double promotion with the other mv coming later for their second cycle promotion. They supposed to do this too for blue flame during fearless era while promoting their Web toon at the same time. It just get delayed because of that bullying scandal so they need to reconstruct the whole webtoon and mv again. They also do this with impurities. They actually promoting this song on on tiktok a lot and bc Epbw just better than unforgiven so it naturally climbing the chart.

    Quote from gerrard174

    Lesserafim is still quite popular in the west. Imo, promoting lsrf domestically now is a smart move. They were being mocked by knetizen when there was a post saying nj ive and lsrf are top 3 4th gen GGs. Knetizens generally dislike lsrf (because of garam scandal, sakura issue etc). It is also quite evidenced on the korean charting, lsrf is the weaker one among the top 5. It is sensible for Soumu/hybe to push for more domestic presence. No point if u sell well abroad but flop at domestic. Too soon to be twice 2.0, it is just their 2nd year+

    Bc they are still quite popular there which is weird for soumu to not promoting them better in the state or sending them to big festivals like nj to promote the group or going to some talk show or something. They are 'quite' popular not popular enough yet. Not like they can't do both domestic and international. promotion. It feels like bang pd or hybe ceo seeing newjeans can achieve that western target so they decided to not pushing lsf much like they intended. Or bang pd just want less competition for his dream academy group so lsf will be base in Asia only. He can't really control mhj to do so.

    LSFM is probably the most popular group in the West that has yet to set foot here, nor do a lick of promo. We don't even have Friday releases! Not sure why they brought Nile Rodgers in for a single only to not promote it in the hemisphere of the world where he's a renowned icon associated w Bowie, Madonna, the birth of disco and funk. 🤷🏻‍♀️


    I actually always thought LSFM were going for a sleek, futuristic, Euro-cool house and techno pop hybrid...that vision held up until they sort of did a grab bag of sounds (some more successful than others) for their Unforgiven compilation/debut.


    I still have a lot of faith in LSFM!

    Quote from sveznalica

    In what world is NJ focusing on domestic market?

    In hybe world before nj get popular internationally. Didn't the higher up of hybe said to mhj that her concept is plain and doesn't have appeal bc apparently that until last year girl crush or teen crush are the only formula to have international success? Obviously that's the reason why they debuting lsf the exact opposite of nj. Because apparently they are not confident at all that nj will even found success domestically let alone internationally.

    G-Idle has more foreign members than Korean (3/5) yet they are loved in Korea.

    Add to that, lesserafim doesnt have a IT Girl representative now in korea. Every top 4th gen GGs have it but lesserafim seems to struggle on that part due to departure of Garam (who i strongly believe was intended to be the FOTG)


    Chaewon is popular but she always being mocked from rigged in for IZONE + nepo-baby (baseless). Sakura - she get hated all the time in SK. Their best bet was Kazuha but her popularity didnt skyrocket (im afriad the hype is fading off - i hope im wrong). In contrast, Eunchae seems to be getting more popular. Overall, their popularity are quite balanced but this is not enough. An IT girl is quite necessary to cement your status on top.


    Note: Newjeans already has minji being the SK top pick for visual + super popular Haerin. Hanni and Danielle are well loved abroad too.

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