Companies you think have no clue about how manage their artists

Sometimes I feel like companies have no plans for their groups because they don't actually know how to make them more popular or how to prevent their popularity from degrading

They just record music, MVs, create a choreography, release them, make some money, schedule some concerts, makes more money and then repeat

Pledis - Seventeen

SM - EXO

YG - Literally everyone there, currently is Blackpink and Treasure

JYP - Itzy

Cube - Everyone after any controversy breaks

Source Music - GFriend*

*In specific case of Source, I'm sure what happened was they have no really vision for GFriend and delegated for Hybe the decision of what to do you with their careers and then they undergo a change in concept and music that result in Crossroads, Apple and Mago, while I love those songs and wanted Gfriend to continue releasing them it was clear it far alienated their fandom

But in any case Hybe still made a plan, even if the plan somewhat failed, while Source just had no plans

Quote from Weitangent

Since you are an exo fan, what would you do if you were managing them.

Currently? Nothing they can really do. But what I would have done since chinese members started leaving a early as 2014:

- Find a second market (probably Japan, as Growl was fairly popular there), as they virtually lost their second market that used to be China. They cant tour there anymore and with chinese members leaving there was no point in keep promoting there when 90% of the group is korean and can't go on TV anymore

- Better use of social media, EXO was for quite some time the kpop group with largest Instagram following meaning their members were popular across Asia, mainly Southeast Asia, but SM did nothing of course

- Removed them from Korea media and TV to turn them into showcases/fanmeeting/concert slaves. From 2015 to 2017 EXO went in an insane schedule, by 2017 they were mentally and physically exhausted as we can see by their body language in awards, countless rumours about members wanting to leave pop up by that time when they were actually just destroyed

- Underuse of members popularity in Korea, mainly Chanyeol. EXO is one of the last boygroups that manage to be popular in Korea, partially because they spent time on korean TV. After SM shut their TV appearances the members domestic popularity plummeted, right in the moment they need individual popularity the best (solo careers)

- Barely any western distribution, content and concerts even if they were arguably more popular here than NCT until last year when NCT surpassed them. EXO was widely famous among western kpop community, but it's hard to secure a big and stable fandom if you don't create fan content

Quote from neigl

Mbk - t-ara

Fnc - aoa

Yg - blackpink is no mismanagement. It works totally fine. They Give low offer while have high demand and so creating even more demand. The girls are popular and successful. So only fans say it's mismanagement because they may get less for paying more compared to other artists. But from company or artist view that's perfect.

Nah, YG got lucky with Blackpink because their songs just "stuck" with public and girls somewhat managed to amass a huge fandom, but go back to Kill this Love era, if YG kept managing Blackpink like that it was clear it was a matter of time until their popularity started plummeting. That's when Universal/Interescope started playing their cards, because YG itself was 100% unable to handle a global group, and what we saw was Blackpink archiving new heights, including big collaborations, global distribution and high charting in western charts

Without Universal support Blackpink career was very likely to start a downward trajectory 100% thanks to mismanagement

For a matter of fact Blackpink went from 400k to 1.4 million sales in just one comeback. Only one group in History was able to undergo such an increase in album sales in a single comeback, BTS from Love Yourself Answer to Persona. This is not to imply Blackpink needs to "thanks" Universal for anything, as in fact Universal was treating them like they always should have been treated, but to further demonstrate how much YG was holding Blackpink back with their ""plans""