KPop Analytics - Part 3

Picture 1. SM Town World Tour III in Jakarta

After the previous two studies (part 1, part 2) about KPop, this time another study will try to take on demographic side of KPop:

"Who are the people who are interested to KPop?"

Summary
Weighted average demographic data within the 3 samples presented below showed (weight is based on estimate viewer in the the countries studied):

1. Gender

• KPop audiences consist of more females than males

2. Age

• KPop audiences dominated by age 18 - 24 (especially in USA and France) and age 35 - 44 (especially in Japan)

Opinion
Market is still potentially growing. In part 1 the interest over time was still had a possibility for trending up further and the study this time also delivered consistent result. As an example, in USA, audience of www.MTV.com was also dominated by age 18 - 24 (similar to audience of www.ALLKPOP.com), however the unique visitors reached 2.6 M (about 4 times more). USA is huge and up to this point, KPop gained interest especially in the area where KPop concerts were held (e.g.: SM Town concerts were held in just Los Angeles and New York). Outside Korea and Japan, KPop still has room to grow.

Methodology

Since demographic data is not (widely) available in some countries, this time analysis will focus on three countries (developed countries which were ever visited by KPop concerts):

• Japan (to represent Asia)
• USA (to represent North America)
• France (to represent Europe)

Tool (and data):
Google AdPlanner (viewed on 7 November 2012)

Analysis will be done by simulating ad placement in popular $GOOG partner in the three countries mentioned above. It is assumed that the popular news or forum site could represent the actual demographic.
Note: Demographic data is not available for every country, hence only limited countries can be analyzed as well

Step 1. Determine websites that will be used to measure the audience
Website as an indicator will be chosen based on Google rank in each country's local Google site (Source) using "K Pop music" translated in popular local language as the Search term. The result is as shown below:

Country	Source	Search Term	Selected Result
Japan	www.google.co.jp	ケイ ポップ 音楽	www.wowkorea.jp
USA	www.google.com	K Pop music	www.allkpop.com
France	www.google.fr	K Pop musique	www.soompi.fr

Step 2. Analyze demographic data of the websites

Demographic data taken from AdPlanner is as shown below:

Gender	Japan	USA	France
Male	36%	42%	39%
Female	64%	58%	61%

Age (year)	Japan	USA	France
0 - 17	0%	0%	0%
18 - 24	7%	57%	70%
25 - 34	16%	26%	18%
35 - 44	32%	8%	8%
45 - 54	23%	4%	4%
55 - 64	17%	2%	0%
65 or more	6%	2%	0%

Additional Demographic Data is as shown below:

Gender	Japan	USA	France
The Site's Unique Visitors	1.3M	650K	90K
Internet Penetration Rate in 2011(1)	78.7%	78.2%	76.8%
Country's Population(2)	127,817,277	311,591,917	65,436,552
Estimate viewer in the country	1.6M	830K	117K
% Population	1.3%	0.27%	0.18%

Other Sources:

1. Internet Users
2. Population

KPop Analytics - Part 2

Picture 1. SM Town World Tour III in Jakarta

Study from previous post found that there was a high possibility that KPop had impact to local music industry. This time a study will try to take on the following question:

"What possibly drove or driven by the growth of KPop popularity?"

Summary
In summary, KPop popularity is driven by:

• Korean artists
  Some notable artists were:
• Girls' Generation members: Seohyun (in Japan), Yoona (in Singapore), Jessica (Indonesia), Sooyoung (France)
• Supernova (Japan)
• 2PM (Indonesia)
• Onew (France)
• File/Media sharing services
  Some notable services were:
• Dropbox and Soundcloud / youfeedme (various countries)
• Social Networking services
  Some notable services were:
• Gumtree (Singapore)
• Airg (Philippines)

KPop popularity drove popularity of:

• Other Korean artists
  Such as Supernova (Japan) and 2ne1 (Indonesia)
• File/Media sharing services
  Such as Dropbox (globally) and $shared / 4shared (Indonesia)
• Transport Information (Singapore and USA)
• Korean-style products
  Such as blazer (Indonesia), samsung mobile phones and winged eyeliner (USA)
• Payment solutions
  Such as OCBC Velocity (Singapore)

Opinion

All the factors studied actually played both roles, however each of them was subjectively categorized into lagging (drove) or keeping up (driven by) factors based on its tendency against K Pop interest trend in the area.

Factors that drive popularity of KPop are certainly the product itself: KPop songs and Hallyu Stars who delivered the songs. Role to spread the news and the songs were done by social networking and file/media sharing services.

Factors that were driven by KPop, beside its less popular songs and artists, are the file/media sharing services that act as the bridge to spread the songs around the globe. People/fans who followed the artists will relatively care about their personality (including fashion style and stuff used) and have willingness to see them in person. This may the reason of trending Korean-style products, transport information, and in the end payment solution to cover all of the expenses.

Methodology

Analysis will be based on search term which has similar trending interest pattern with K Pop (excluding search which include term K Pop). Higher correlation (r) terms is more favorable.

Previous post discovered top countries where interest about KPop emerged. One common thing that the countries had was that KPop concert was held in those countries. One of the notable concert was "SM Town Concert". Hence, this time two other countries which had experienced the concert will be added to the analysis: USA and France (China is excluded since Google/the tool used is not the main search engine in the area).
Selected search terms will be allocated subjectively into 3 categories: Keeping Up Terms, Lagging Terms, and Either. Keeping Up Terms are terms which are ahead of K Pop trends (keeping up), while Lagging Terms are terms which are behind K Pop trends (lagging). Either are terms which sometimes kept up, but in some other times those lagged as well.

Tool (and data provider): Google Correlate viewed on 4-5 October 2012.

Below are some findings in each region (selected terms only)
1. Japan (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
ソヒョン (seohyun) r=0.9515	ヤフー 路線 (yahoo route) r=0.9519	超新星 ブログ (supernova blog) r=0.9461
soundcloud r=0.9457	ドロップ ボックス (drop box) r=0.9457
	ガーミン コネクト (garmin connect) r=0.9457

2. Singapore (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
yoona r=0.9245	gothere.sg r=0.9348	android phone r=0.9174
	bus timing r=0.9275 shuttle bus r=0.9225	gumtree r=0.9210
	ocbc velocity r=0.9186

3. Malaysia (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
	soundcloud r=0.9510	blackshot r=0.9679
		dropbox r=0.9547
		samsung galaxy r=0.9484

4. Indonesia (correlate with term: Lagu Korea)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
band korea (korean band)  r=0.9541 boy band korea (korean boy band)  r=0.9472	$shared  r=0.9371	rambut korea (korean hair) r=0.9349
girls generation r=0.9452 snsd r=0.9269  jessica snsd r=0.9259	2ne1 r=0.9309 2 ne 1 r=0.9239
2pm r=0.9250	blazer korea (korean blazer) r=9234

5. Philippines (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
airg r=0.9459	soundcloud r=0.9510

6. USA (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
www.dropbox.com r=0.9603	winged eyeliner r=0.9587	samsung galaxy phones r=0.9512
download soundcloud r=0.9522		pace bus tracker r=0.9512

7. France (correlate with term: K Pop)

Keeping Up Terms	Lagging Terms	Either
onew  r=0.8984		feed me r=0.8994
girl generation r=0.8792		dropbox r=0.8701 dropbox r=0.8689
sooyoung r=0.8698

KPop Analytics - Part 1

Picture 1. SM Town World Tour III in Jakarta

Korean Wave is the general term used to address growing popularity of Korean culture (mostly is about KPop) outside Korea (South Korea). A study was conducted to answer a simple question:

"Does Korean Wave have impact to the popularity of local music?"

Summary
In general, Korean Wave in the form of K Pop has impact to the popularity of local music. This is supported by the facts that:

• There was search query of K Pop is increasing while it is decreasing for local songs.
• It was started even before 2004 in Japan, but started to show growth on 2011.
• Growing interest dominated particularly by South East Asia region.
• Other than in Japan, K Pop hasn't surpassed the popularity of local music.

Opinion

Decreasing interest over local music is possibly an early indicator of dropping market share of local music and increasing market share of imported music (especially from Korea, India, and USA). KPop shows growing interest in countries, especially where KPop concerts were ever be held. A lot of Korean artists are regularly active in Japan, hence it's common to see high interest growth in Japan.

Methodology
Measurement was conducted through web-based approach using Google Trends (including the data)
Step 1. Analyzing popular search location for the following term: K Pop
Study found that Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Philippines came in the top 6.
Note: Since Korean Wave doesn't happen in its own country, so Korea was taken out from analysis.

Step 2. Analyzing search trends (limited by region) between K Pop (blue) and Local music (red) by comparing trend of interest of term "K Pop" (blue) and local music (red).

Japan Malaysia Singapore
N/A

Indonesia Philippines