Melon, the music platform operated by Kakao Entertainment, has launched a full-scale promotional campaign in China for its integrated Korea-China-Japan K-pop chart developed with overseas platforms. Melon's chart, which has established itself as a "measure of success" for K-pop artists, is now expanding its influence beyond Korea to the global stage.
According to Melon on Thursday, Tencent Music, a co-operator of the "Global-K Chart," ran outdoor advertisements promoting the chart in five major Chinese cities—Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hohhot, Suzhou, and Nanchang—from the 15th to the 22nd of last month. The Global-K Chart is a K-pop artist chart that Melon unveiled last month with China's Tencent Music and Japan's LINE Music. It assigns scores by combining music streaming usage and fan activity metrics from each platform. The K-pop artist rankings calculated this way are updated simultaneously across the three platforms.
In the May tally, the group aespa took the No. 1 monthly spot, becoming the subject of the first advertisement. The outdoor advertising ran for one week at large commercial facilities in the center of each city. Promotional images for aespa's new song "Lemonade" were displayed alongside the chart logo on outdoor billboards at venues including "Incity Mega," a super-large shopping mall in Shanghai's Jiading District, the coastal complex "K11 ECOAST" in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and the "Nanchang Wanxiangcheng" shopping mall in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
Tencent Music and Melon estimate that, given the foot traffic, the advertisements were exposed to millions of people in each city. Tencent Music plans to continue promoting the monthly No. 1 artists on the Global-K Chart through outdoor advertising.
Melon's strategy, which has solidified its position as a "K-pop fandom platform," is now extending in earnest overseas. Melon's existing "Melon Chart" has established itself as a representative K-pop chart recognized by the entertainment industry at home and abroad, but there were limits to participation by overseas fans. This is because Melon cannot officially be used in overseas markets. This is why Melon signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Tencent Music and LINE Music last December and prepared for the launch of the Global-K Chart. This is the first attempt to show the K-pop consumption trends of Korea, China, and Japan—the core Asian markets—in a single chart.
Melon expects the Global-K Chart to become a key indicator showing the popularity of K-pop artists within Northeast Asia. QQ Music, the Chinese music platform under Tencent Music, has more than 100 million users, and LINE Music is linked to the ecosystem of LINE, Japan's "national messenger." A Kakao Entertainment official said, "Through this chart, overseas fans can check in real time which music and artists people are responding to," adding, "It will also serve as a meaningful stepping stone for K-pop artists' overseas expansion."
