Harvard professor attributes BTS's success to relationship with producer

K-pop

Published: 02 Jul. 2020, 19:08

Harvard professor attributes BTS's success to relationship with producer

BTS performs during its online concert "Bang Bang Con" on June 14. [BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT]

A Harvard professor has attributed the success of BTS to the band's relationship with its producer Bang Si-hyuk.

A team of researchers led by Anita Elberse, professor of business administration at Harvard University, revealed their findings in a paper titled "Big Hit Entertainment and Blockbuster Band BTS: K-Pop Goes Global" that looked at the factors behind the band's success and whether that formula could generate the same success for other bands.

Elberse and Lizzy Woodham submitted the paper on June 26, which is now available on the Harvard Business Review's online store, on how BTS "found unparalleled success around the globe — a remarkable feat given that most of their songs are in Korean."

Big Hit Entertainment

According to Big Hit Entertainment, the study began in August last year when the team visited Seoul.

The 22-page paper looks at how Big Hit Entertainment birthed BTS, comparing the agency's system with the three major companies that had previously dominated the K-pop scene: SM, YG and JYP Entertainments.

Bang Si-hyuk

The study will be used as teaching material for Elberse's class from next semester.

Since the band's immense global success that began with its first Billboard landing in 2017 with "DNA," it has been a popular subject of research among professors.

According the Research Information Sharing Service operated by the Korea Education and Research Information Service, 23 papers by Korean professors were written on BTS in 2018, and 36 in 2019.

One includes a study on the economic effects of BTS's concerts held in Seoul last year, written by Prof. Pyun Ju-hyun of economics at Korea University, which estimated that the Seoul concert held in October last year had an economic effect of 1 trillion won ($834 million).

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]