Culture, that intrinsic expression of humankind, has somehow grown remote from the general public. Arts and cultural institutions, just like their business counterparts, urgently need to find new audiences, meet changing demands and consider their business models afresh. The whole sector needs to reinvent itself, says the author. But how? Beatriz Muñoz-Seca recommends that arts and cultural institutions focus not so much on their products as on c...

Crypton Future Media, a music software company based in Sapporo, Japan, developed Hatsune Miku (HM), a singing voice synthesizer software program (Vocaloid). Users entered lyrics and melodies to create songs, which were then sung by Hatsune Miku, a 16-year-old female virtual singer featured on the software packaging.Initially targeting professionals, HM unexpectedly caught on among amateurs who produced music, lyrics, artwork and videos, which th...

On the evening of June 10, 2011, the first European tour of Korean idol groups was held in Paris. With European fans demanding tickets and organizing a flashmob rally in front of the Louvre Museum, SM Entertainment, the producers, immediately set up an additional European concert. The success of the Paris concert elevated the status of K-pop and showed that it held potential in the global market. Behind the development of K-pop was the uniq...

Supplement to 9B16M009.

YG Entertainment (YG) is the second largest entertainment company in the South Korean pop music (K-pop) industry, and has experienced rapid growth while maintaining a profit margin of over two times the average profitability of top U.S. record labels. The case examines how YG and other K-pop entertainment companies have developed a unique system to produce a competitive advantage in an industry that typically experiences high failure rates and su...

The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola), the brand that “taught the world to sing,” was widely considered to be the leader when it came to music marketing. The 2010 and 2014 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup games provided an ideal backdrop for analyzing Coca-Cola’s success in music marketing. While the company’s marketing approaches were similar in both World Cup games, they differed in their delivery and results. In 2...

Numerous situations require sequencing objects. Several factors can be taken into account, such as creating contrast, avoiding satiation, satisfying impatience, or managing anticipation and recall. In this case, the music director of a rock and roll band uses sequencing to order a band’s set list for an upcoming concert. Although the lead singer has chosen 15 songs the music director wants to use her expertise in understanding what factors in a s...

Spotify reached $3 billion in revenues in 2016, amid a booming music-streaming market that now made up 51% of the U.S. music industry's total revenues. Finally the industry had embraced digitization and was now seeing two-digit growth for the first time in decades. However, that growth had an Achilles' heel. Spotify itself was staring at an operating loss of $350 million, having never been able to post a profit in all its years of existence. Now,...

Spotify reached $3 billion in revenues in 2016, amid a booming music-streaming market that now made up 51% of the U.S. music industry's total revenues. Finally the industry had embraced digitization and was now seeing two-digit growth for the first time in decades. However, that growth had an Achilles' heel. Spotify itself was staring at an operating loss of $350 million, having never been able to post a profit in all its years of existence. Now,...

Big Hit Entertainment, a Korean-based producer of popular music content, was promoting its hit "idol group," BTS, as a serious entry in the world’s mainstream musical entertainment business, alongside global performers such as Justin Bieber. The "K-pop ma