'Content Insight' seminar discusses strategy for evergreen productions

Industry

Published: 23 Nov. 2023, 18:50

'Content Insight' seminar discusses strategy for evergreen productions

Hwang Jae-heon, head of the intellectual property (IP) business center at Kakao Entertainment, speaks at the ″2023 Content Insight″ seminar held on Thursday at the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca) Education Services Center in Hongneung, northern Seoul, jointly held by Kocca and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. [KOCCA]

No matter how successful a film or drama is, the craze of a single work can only survive three months after it finishes, and there is but one way to prolong that shelf life: Make a franchise out of it and turn it into all genres imaginable, experts say.

“Out of the myriad of drama series, taking the example of the United States, only 10 percent of newly-planned content actually gets made into a real series,” said Hwang Jae-heon, head of the intellectual property (IP) business center at Kakao Entertainment.

“And of the content that is made, only 10 percent succeed,” he said. “Since there are so many different channels and platforms nowadays, the only way you can succeed is just to make as many different genres of content as you can with one content idea. You have to team up with a secondary business partner that fits with your content so that you’re not just making a lot of content, but a lot of good content.”

Hwang’s critique came during a two-day content seminar titled “2023 Content Insight” held at the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca) Education Services Center in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, on Thursday. Jointly organized by Kocca and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the event featured speakers from diverse fields in entertainment who came together to share their insight on this year’s content market.

The ″2023 Content Insight″ seminar held on Thursday at the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca) Education Services Center in Hongneung, northern Seoul, jointly held by Kocca and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism [KOCCA]

This year’s “Content Insight” centered on the theme of “The expansion and diversity of the content market,” especially on the idea of cross-genre adaptation and expansion of an IP. Speakers such as Hwang and Ryan Michero, director of photography at Pixar Animation Studios, took part.

According to Hwang, one aspect about the domestic market is that it lacks diversity compared to other countries, which is especially visible in the pop culture sector. The Korean market quickly gave way to Netflix ever since it entered the market in 2016 and has since been witness to a muddy fight between the local producers to penetrate a very small portion of an already-crowded market.

Kakao Entertainment has been focusing on its webtoon and web content business, especially in turning its web comics into drama series, films or games. Successful works include web novel “Solo Leveling” (2016-18), which was turned into webtoon, game and also animation.

“But at the end of the day, it comes down to whether you want to follow the trend or stick to quality content,” he said. “We believe that good content is what wins in the end.”

Ryan Michero, director of photography at Pixar Animation Studios, speaks at the ″2023 Content Insight″ seminar held on Thursday at the Korea Creative Content Agency (Kocca) Education Services Center in Hongneung, northern Seoul, jointly held by Kocca and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. [KOCCA]

Content expansion can take place from online to offline, according to Jung Woo-sung, chief operating officer at commerce marketing company Take2 Media Group. Take2 specializes in taking a drama or film franchise and coming up with related merchandise from the content, such as stuffed animals or the actual food from the series.

“The growth of Hallyu [the Korean wave] is helping Korean content get more coverage from overseas, but the content itself is not that profitable,” Jung said. “The ever-increasing production costs just about get covered, and advertisers continue to pull out to spend money elsewhere. But just because a drama series does well, it doesn’t mean that the merchandise will do well, too. It needs to be well-planned out early on in the production stage and executed just as meticulously, too.”

The second day of “2023 Content Insight” will center around tech and retail sectors of entertainment. Executives from channel network LG HelloVision, immersive content production company Disguise, production studio R2D Company, Google Korea, streaming platform Tving and music video network Vevo will take part.

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