THE PROBLEM WITH SM COMEBACKS !!!
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Comeback overlaps
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Boy, this is really challenging. As a fan, I’m certainly frustrated sometimes at the overlapping cbs and the lack of time artists get, but Yutazen makes a really good point about trying to allow enough space for the amount of acts and amount of comebacks.
I also think sometimes that to us it’s overlapping, but they do represent different audience segments. For example, the audience for Shinee is not necessarily the same audience for NCT or WayV, so SM is trying to have something out there for everyone. For every EXOzen like me, there’s an EXO-L who thinks NCT is noise music and an NCTzen who thinks EXO is for boring boomers. So it makes sense that SM seemingly overloads the comebacks to reach multiple groups.
It’s worth noting they’re not the only ones with this approach, the company formerly known as Big Hit dropped a new TXT, Enhyphen and BTS all within a 4 or 5 week window. (I think it was particularly crushing for poor Enhyphen to launch like 10 days before the category monster that is BTS.) Again, these are targeting different segments but these were all really close together and overlapping. (Tbf, you can always use these to build hype for your new group with crossover promos.)
SM is shitty management though, no doubt, and leaves a lot of money on the table from a hype perspective when it comes to promos to me. (If you know you are talking to different groups, get your most loyal fans to be your brand advocates/hype beasts by building the hype on new releases.)
Yes I’m talking about of both sides of my mouth here. Tl, dr: I get some of what they do but some of it is shit.
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That imo they’re disappointing. You wait round for months for a song that’s not that good.
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I can agree with all points except the overlapping part being a bad thing. Having crossovers between their groups is satisfying imo especially if you like both groups and also satisfy each group’s fans by a cb. SM simply have too many acts and they can’t just dedicate every month in the year to one group (it would be great if they have an ideal time that fits each artist schedule and fit the company’s promoting strategy but that’s just too hard).
For example, Exols, Sones, Revulvs, and Aespa fans are all eagerly anticipating a CB for their fav group. If SNSD got a CB first -all to themselves- then RV and Exo fans will feel neglected and vice versa.
Imo overlapping can be fun. But this is probably just me. I honestly don’t care about wins and successful promotions but I care more about enjoying myself with the interactions of my fav groups and the more the merrier.
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I think it's evident that overlapping scheduling isn't a big priority to the SM teams when it comes to planning comebacks.
Then again, when a company has so many groups and artists coming back in a year, it's hard to avoid overlapping comebacks.
NCT and its sub-units alone already had like 10 comebacks in 2020.
Add to that multiple comebacks of their other groups and on top of that the debuts and comebacks of their individual artists like Taeyeon, BoA, Taemin, Suho, Chen, Super Junior-D&E etc etc, and it's practically impossible to prevent overlap in comebacks.
Personally, I don't have that much of an issue with it, it provides great interactions like how when SNSD and Red Velvet shared the encore stage having unrestrained fun
The problem and weakness of the SM people is that they're not able take advantage of those overlaps, with their nonchalant, half-hearted promotions. They should find ways to create synergy with those multiple comebacks, so that they support and reinforce eachother instead of hindering eachother.
Offscreen and behind the scenes, members of SM groups have amazing energy and dynamic interactions with eachother - they always have - yet somehow the SM people have always sucked at building upon that.
Like I said before, SM's promotion strength and effectiveness really lags behind what some of the other top companies are able to muster for promotion and comeback anticipation.
SM is in many ways like their SM Station project: SM Station was magnificent in the diverse, surprising and interesting songs it delivered and how it provided chances to SM artists and other artists to showcase more of themselves and to collaborate with others, producing unexpected, interesting collabs. Yet for all its splendidness and creativity, it failed to make much of an impact compared with how much effort was invested in it during its 3-4 years run.
I have to compliment 1 comeback or debut though: Seulgi & Irene's debut was perfectly promoted imo. The many teasers before, the 3 additional performance videos, an additional video for B-side titles like Naughty and Uncover, the amazing and best 2021 dance choreography for non-title song Naughty => all of this together was perfectly well done, and like promotions should always be done imo.
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I can agree with all points except the overlapping part being a bad thing. Having crossovers between their groups is satisfying imo especially if you like both groups and also satisfy each group’s fans by a cb. SM simply have too many acts and they can’t just dedicate every month in the year to one group (it would be great if they have an ideal time that fits each artist schedule and fit the company’s promoting strategy but that’s just too hard).
For example, Exols, Sones, Revulvs, and Aespa fans are all eagerly anticipating a CB for their fav group. If SNSD got a CB first -all to themselves- then RV and Exo fans will feel neglected and vice versa.
Imo overlapping can be fun. But this is probably just me. I honestly don’t care about wins and successful promotions but I care more about enjoying myself with the interactions of my fav groups and the more the merrier.
The interactions between SM artists is what makes all those overlaps so entertaining, overall they have great chemistry with eachother, and the banter and interactions they have is fun to watch
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What I noticed on the last years is that SM have this thing where they barely release shit or spend money the first half of the year (specially the 1st quarter) to then overlap comebacks and groups and release everything at the end of the year.
I get this though. It’s to get a 4th quarter boost to jazz their yearly performance, particularly during the gift-giving season, as well as to pair with the year-end opportunities to showcase artists.
What I don’t get is the delay coming out of that period. Knowing that all eyes were on the NCT units after many of the year end shows, they didn’t bother to carry that hype and interest into January, February or most of March. WayV are doing much better than their past cb, but I can’t help but think an earlier cb could have gone farther when all was still fresh in casual fans’ heads and beret guy and blue haired guy and vampire dude were all the trend on social media.
(I’m not counting the 127 Japanese album because that snuck in a window and snuck back out. If you were not deep in the fandom, you wouldn’t have really realized it happened.)
As noted, I get some of their rationale but other times I got nothing..
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And we all know who got sidelined 
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