The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example

Home , Dream High, My Love from the Star, The Heirs

投稿類別:英文寫作類

篇名: The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example.

作者: 楊淳斐。國立新竹女子高級中學。二年一班

指導老師: 黃吉慶老師

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. I. Introduction

1. Motivation

It is no exaggeration that Korean Drama has become part of most Asians’ life, especially in both Taiwan and China. As a matter of fact, any merchandise related to popular Korea dramas would soon be sold out. Among all these popular Korean dramas, the one stands out in 2014 will definitely be “My love from the star (來自星星的你).”

In addition to 50 billion Click-through rates (CTR) in China, the drama “My love from the star” also remains No.5 and No.6 in Top searches of Yahoo Taiwan’s mobile and computer version of 2014. Moreover, it had an average of 24.02% national ratings in Korea while being voted as “the favorite TV shows of Korea” in a survey conducted by the GallupKorea last year. Besides, this drama, had taken Asia by storm and the fever had lasted for months. With this instant hit’s tremendous impact on various aspects of Asian people’s life, the author of this dissertation is eager to learn the reasons behind its success.

Accordingly, this study aims at analyzing the following two research questions about Korean dramas, by taking “My love from the star” for example: (1) The elements contributing to the success of “my love”. (2) The strategies adopted to gain overseas popularity in Taiwan and China.

2. Methods

This study is based on: (1) website data, (2) literature review of books and magazine, (3) results of questionnaire (see Appendix). Total of 100 questionnaires were sent out to collect data and information for the research questions of this dissertation. 54 surveys were given out to students of class 101 and 201 of Hsinchu Girl’s Senior High, while the other 46 was distributed to adults selected at random.

II. Thesis

The thesis contains 4 major parts and will be presented as follows. In the first part, the background of “My love from the star” will be introduced. Next, there will be discussions about major elements paving the way for the drama’s success in the second part. Then the third part will reveal the strategies adopted contributing to the drama’s sensation overseas. Finally, the last part will be the analysis of the questionnaire’s result and its implication.

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. 1. Background of the drama

1.1 Facts

“My love from the star” (abbreviated as “My Love” below) is a Korean romance drama preceded by “the Heirs”, and followed by “three days.” It was aired at SBS, Seoul Broadcasting System, one of the biggest broadcasters in Korea. It was played from December 18, 2013, to 27 February, 2014, on every Wednesday and Thursday at 9:55 PM. An episode is about an hour long. It was extended from the original 20 episodes to 21, due to audiences’ overwhelming demand. Directed by Jang Tae-yoo and written by Park Ji-eun, the story was rewritten from the record of “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty”. The leading roles were played by Kim Soo-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun, while Park Hae-jin, Yoo In-na, and Ahn Jye-hyun played the supporting roles in the drama.

1.2 Characters

The 2 main characters in this drama are Do Min-joon and Cheon Song-yi. Do Min-joon is an alien landed on Earth 400 years ago. He was saved and fell in love with a girl in the Joseon Dynasty who looked exactly the same as younger Cheon Song-yi. He then lived lonely and was eager to return home after the girl died for protecting him. Everything remained unchanged, until he met Cheon Song-yi, a Korean super actress who was thick-skinned at almost everything. After an incident, she faced serious failure in her career, and fell in love with her neighbor, Do Min-joon, who was also her professor at the college.

1.3 Summary

An alien, Do Min-joon, landed on South Korea 400 years ago and lived on to modern days. He fell in love with the top actress, Cheon Song-yi, who had deep connection with him in the past. While Cheon faced serious career crisis and was accused of committing a murder, Do was always at her side and protected her. In the end, they finally cleared out the misunderstanding between each other, and overcame all the hardships they’ve gone through.

2. Factors that made the drama eye-catching

2.1 Plots

This sci-fi drama is considered to be a comedy with the combination of suspense and romance elements, while containing a few historical scenes. The arrangement and setting of

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. the main characters are similar to all the other previous hot dramas: a smart, fine-looking, and rich man pairing up with a pretty lady who needs to be helped. However, the element of an alien added in this story, has taken the drama to a brand new degree. “People have never stopped discussing about alien” (Tseng, 2014), and the theory was proved true by the drama through bringing a storm of alien in Asia. Moreover, this was the first and successful drama merging alien and human character in Korea.

Also, most of women once dreamed to become a super star, so audiences will feel connected with the character more easily. Like Cheon Song-yi, “she’s a super star, but can also be very down-to-earth. She gets drunk at a comic book store. She trips over. She falls asleep at someone else’s house. These are things that can happen to normal people, but it’s fun seeing a top star do that” (Jang, 2014). That is to say, allowing audience to get a closer look at the celebrity’s life and getting these viewers involved makes it one of the selling points in this drama.

Global times (2014) points out that the drama “wins out by having two story lines, a romance and a murder case, developing in parallel. This makes for the perfect balance between relaxation and tension.’ The well-knit plots make people more eager to know the ending. Moreover, the screenwriter allows the audiences to know more secrets than the characters did, using specious information to mislead viewer’s predictions, then reveal the surprising truth that are beyond their expectations in the end.

2.2 Casts

One of the most important parts for becoming the best-selling TV series is the involvement of great actors. Casts with major box-office appeal, topicality, and classy performance are more likely to guarantee high-ratings when considering their tremendous fan base. The two main characters in “My love” were played by Kim Soo-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun.

2.2.1 Kim Soo-hyung

Kim Soo-hyun is a renowned Korean actor, singer, and model. Kim is best known for playing in “Dream high”, and the film “Secretly, Gratefully”, which broke several box office records and was the most successful hit of the year. He is also famous for television series “Moon embracing the sun” and movie “The thieves”, which was his first and successful corporation with Jun Ji-hyun.

2.2.2 Jun Ji-hyun

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example.

Jun Ji-hyun is a 33-year-old famous Korean actress. She started her career as a model, switching her career focus to film business during the shooting time of “White Valentine’s Day”. Jun is best known for her clear-cut role as “the girl” in “my Sassy Girl”. This movie made her way to becoming an A-lister in Korea, and helped her to increase good publicity in Asia. Both the movie and she were all the rages in that year.

2.3 Screenwriter

Screenwriter is the fundamental part of a TV series production in Korea. Park Ji-eun, the screenwriter of “my love”, has been praised as the screenwriting heavyweights of Korea’s new generation. She wrote the hit series “Queen of housewives” and “My husband got a family”, and won recognition by winning several significant awards. She pointed out a fact when being interviewed by the media, “over 90 percent of screenwriters in Korea are women, and they are housewives just like me. Therefore, being sensitive and having sufficient free time for writing helps to make fabulous work possible” (Park, 2014).

Nevertheless, unlike practices elsewhere, only the first few episodes of Korean dramas are shot in advance, the rest are shot and written unceasingly as the series is being aired. Scripts and plots may be changed according to audiences’ feedbacks and critics; therefore, screenwriter can interact with viewers and take their comments as suggestions.

With women’s unique viewing, Korean screenwriter is capable of writing touching stories meeting most of views’ imagination. Interactions with netizens help to trigger continual, related discussions, and unceasing filming allows them to come up with more interesting ending and scenes.

2.4 Special effects

Without special effects, viewers wouldn’t be able to visualize Do Min-joon’s ability to freeze the time, to control the motion of objects, and teleportation. Overall, the crew has spent over $2 billion NTD on special effects. In order to make his superpower look realistic, the crew recorded at 4K standard, the so-called “Matrix effect”, for bullet time effect creation. It was the first time HD cameras were used for television series in South Korea. In the scene which Do Min-joon stopped the truck to save Cheon Song-yi, over 60 ultra-speed cameras were installed in 180 degrees to capture every angles of the stopped characters. Vmovier (2014) revealed that even the beautiful night view from the balcony of Do’s house, was an exquisite post-production composited from the green screen. It is fair to say that the amazing

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. teleportation and all kinds of extraordinary scenes have made the fantasy of the drama reach a brand new level.

2.5 Soundtrack

Usually, theme songs are chosen because of its relativity with the drama, and most importantly, the price. Record companies offer songs in order to trigger discussion among people and expose the album to the audience. However, Korean dramas’ tailored-made songs are based on the drama itself (Huang, 2014). Their original soundtracks (OST) are closely connected to the plots, and new theme songs will be released as the relationships between characters vary from time to time. As a result, people tend to be more into the drama because the lyrics match the scenes perfectly. All 8 OST in “My love” were at the top spots of the chart at the time when that they were released. Singers’ fans will be interested in the series, and viewers' emotion will also be easily affected by the soundtrack and feel the same way as the characters do. Hence, the soundtrack released will also help to creates high ratings of the drama.

2.6 Placement marketing

If you search for products that Cheon Song-yi has used, or just the merchandise appears in the drama, over 7 million results will be found on Taobao, the biggest online shopping website in China. “High sense of presence generated by an immersive media experience will minimize viewers’ awareness of the persuasion tactics represented by a product placement event” (Cambell & Kirmani, 2000). Therefore product placements in Korean dramas are always well-connected with the plot, to properly present the products in the drama. Since Korean dramas are filmed continuously as it airs, other brands will decide the amount of sponsorship according to the ratings and viewer’s discussions about the drama.

For example, Line is one of the most successful sponsors in “my love.” Do Min-joon and Cheon Song-yi use it to communicate with each other, they sent stickers rather than typing. After the drama was played, Line’s users in China and Korea have increased 10 times more than before, and the number of total users rose from 3.4 billion to over 4 billion. Other products, such as the backpack Do Min-joon uses in the drama, have increased their selling for 80 percent more than last year. As a consequence, the placement marketing strategy adopted by Korean dramas does effectively boost the selling of the drama-related merchandise and also promote dramas’ ratings at the same time.

3. Strategies to gain overseas popularity in Taiwan and China

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example.

In less than two months since episode 17 was released, “my love” has notched up more than 8 billion times in mainland China, and became the most-talked-about dramas of the year. The bilateral success between Taiwan and China consists of three innovative elements: (1) Instant, (2) Media Multiplexing, and (3) Interacting (Lin, 2014). Nowadays TV is no longer the best way to watch dramas, online platform is replacing its place with a faster, portable, and international option. According to CommonWealth Magazine (2014), despite from the influences of Kim and Chun, online broadcasting platform has been the most powerful turbo accelerated this fever.

3.1 Instant: online broadcasting platform

Piracy and videos downloaded from illegal websites in China has always been considered the biggest problem for producers to sell their dramas overseas. However, the core strategy of “my star” was, if you can’t overturn the negative impact your enemy has brought on you, follow and lead it. Create your value to be used, and recruit them into your own team. Make it a win-win situation, and then everyone can share a bigger market (Guo, 2014). So “my love” had made a daring decision to try something others haven’t done before- selling the exclusive telecast right to the famous Chinese online broadcasting platform, iQIYI. With the high definition videos, real time translation, exclusive behind the scenes, actors’ interviews, and most importantly, instant broadcasting, iQIYI has become the most powerful avenue selling this drama. With the assistance of online broadcasting platform, Korean dramas are capable of attracting wide audiences and enjoying high ratings beyond the limit of time and space.

3.2 Media multiplexing: news

People nowadays tend to watch TV and use their cellphones simultaneously, and they get information via news, so news is one of the best ways to get everyone’s attention. According to the analysis that iQIYI made on the ratings, they found out the popular parts then edited them into the form of news, and successfully aroused people’s interest. Furthermore, owing to its high ratings and involvement of alien romance, news had been reporting the drama all the time. In other words, thanks to iQIYI, the integration of old and new media has made it one of the key factors leading to the sensation of “My love” in both Taiwan and China.

3.3 Interacting: celebrities

The popularity of “my love” is not limited to average folk, many professionals and

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. stars have become fans as well. (Global Times, 2014). Since the leading actress in “my love” is a Korean super actress, the story reveals a lot of mysteries of the show business, including star’s tendency of staying skinny, pretty, being cautious when saying everything, and many of them even attempt to keep themselves from aging at all costs. Thus, the show-business-related content strikes a chord with many stars, which then turned these celebrities into followers of the drama. As a result, it’s little wonder that these show business celebrities’ influence brought in more audiences, and further raised the popularity of the drama.

4. Results and discussion

In this section, the results of the questionnaire will be analyzed with figures in four parts.

4.1 Popularity

As showed in Graph 1, 76% of the survey takers have the experience of watching Korean dramas, while only 24% of the people don’t. However, about 58% of those people, who haven’t watched it, have friends or relatives who watch Korean drama frequently; with less than 42% of their friends or relatives haven’t developed the habit of watching Korean dramas. Furthermore, 77.6% percent of those audiences have watched “My love”, while all the remaining 22.4% have either heard about others discussing the series or seen its advertisements. In short, all of the survey takers who have watched Korean Drama had either watched or known the series. Although the number of survey takers is not large enough to represent the whole population of Taiwan, it at least implies that a large proportion of Taiwanese people have been watching Korean dramas on a regular basis. Thus, with this large population of viewers, it proves that Korean dramas enjoy high ratings and popularity in Taiwan.

My friends didn't Yes No 41.7% 76% 24% My friends did 58.3%

Graph 1: Have watched Korean Drama or not

4.2 Comparison of appealing elements

Graph 2 indicates that the top 3 appealing elements of typical Korean dramas are plots, casts, and reputation; while reputation, plots, and casts remain the top 3 factors when it comes

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. to the series, “My love.” The element, reputation, includes the comprehensive performance in aspects like celebrities’ discussions, high ratings, frequency of news reports, the hitting rates of social network, and online platform recommendations. Moreover, according to the survey, special effects and advertisement in “My love” are relatively more appealing to viewers than typical dramas. In addition, since the major Korean OST would be replaced with Taiwan’s latest released songs that weren’t tailor-made when airing in Taiwan, it was considered an ineffective factor and was excluded from the questionnaire.

100.0% Typical Korean Drama "My love" 79% 80.0% 69.70% 71.10% 76.20% 59.30% 60.0% 42.10% 37.20% 40.0% 25% 20.0% 0.0% Casts Plots Reputation Screenwriter

Graph 2: Comparison of appealing elements of typical Korean Drama and “My Love” 4.3 Specific genres

Regarding specific genres that the survey participants are interested, romance claims an overwhelming majority of 78.9% votes, followed by school life, historical, and comedy. It is clear that the type of the story matters a lot in Korean drama. In brief, romance is referred to as the most popular genre of Korean dramas and “My love” basically possesses the all the elements appreciated by the drama watchers.

4.4 Marketing strategies

With a 47% of the survey takers rejecting to buy the placement product in “My love”, the marketing strategies didn’t seem to work that well in Taiwan. However, compared to those who had only seen the drama’s advertisement but never watched it, 52.5% of them have increased their willingness to buy the merchandise after watching “My love”. Hence, the number presented in the survey indicates the fact that Korean dramas’ marketing strategies are still effective to some degree.

4.5 Ways to watch

The graph shows that 74.5% of people watch “my love” on online broadcasting platform instead of TV. Cleary, online platform is playing a key part in raising Korean dramas’ overseas popularity in Taiwan.

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example.

26.5% Online platform TV 74.5% Graph 3: How did viewers watch “My love” III. Conclusion

To conclude, the two dimensions of Korean drama’s success, taking “My Love from the Star” for example, are discussed in this study. First of all, owing to the specially-designed plot of alien-and-human romance, as well as the renowned casts, exceptional screenwriter, “my love” turned out to be a hit drama series with high popularity. Besides, other than fantastic special effects and the tailor-made OST, which also help to boost the rating, Korean dramas’ marketing strategy successful promotes the selling of drama-related products.

What’s more, as for the strategies adopted by Korean dramas to raise overseas popularity in Taiwan and China, online broadcasting platform has played an irreplaceable role, and the influence of celebrities and news broadcasting should never be ignored as well. Additionally, the survey results also back up the analysis of the reasons behind Koreans dramas’ success. That is, a large proportion of Taiwanese tend to watch Korean dramas on a regular basis, and even those who don’t watch Korean dramas can’t get away from Korean drama related merchandise and advertisements. In short, the secret of Korean dramas’ success lies in Koreans’ clever tactics of containing elements that appeals to audiences in the drama, airing dramas through online platform, and adopting effective marketing strategies.

IV. Reference

Campbell, M. C., & Kirmani, A. (2000, June). Consumers’ use of persuasion knowledge: The effects of accessibility and cognitive capacity on perceptions of an influence agent. The Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 69–83. doi:10.1086/314309 China.org.cn. Why 'My Love from the Star' is so successful? Retrieved March 12, 2015, from http://www.china.org.cn/video/2014-04/02/content_31978377.htm Dung, N. 朴智恩：十年前就想寫外星人故事. 今周刊. 132~133. Guo, Z. 來自《星星》的超熱賣法則. 商業週刊. 76~81. Lin. C. 看韩剧《星星的你》里的新媒体营销. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://finance.sina.com.cn/zl/international/20140305/122318412519.shtml TVBS. Retrieved March 7, 2015, from https://tw.news.yahoo.com/ 當掌聲響起- 透視韓流密碼 - 韓劇產業鏈操作秘訣

The Analysis of Reasons Behind the Success of Korean Dramas: Take “My Love from the Star” for Example. -090300114.html Vmovier.《来自星星的你》特效拍摄与制作真实揭秘. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from http://www.vmovier.com/43648 Xi, W. You who came from Korea. Retrieved March 19, 2015, from http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/844707.shtml Xu, Y.《來自星星的你》兩岸爆紅之祕. 天下雜誌. 86~88.

V. Appendix: Quesionnaire

Questionnaire on Korean Drama Gender: □male □female Hi, I am a student from HGSH, the purpose of doing this questionnaire is to gather useful data for my essay: “The analysis of reasons behind the success of Korean-Drama: take ‘My love who from the star’ for example.”All the information provided will only be used in the essay. Thank you for your time and help. Age: □10~19 □20~29 □30~39 □40~49 □50~59 □above 60 1. Do you have a habit of watching Korean Dramas:□Yes (Please skip Question 2) □No (Please answer Question 3) 2. If not, do you have any relatives or friends who watch Korean Dramas: □Yes □No (If you answer this question, this is THE END OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE. THANK YOU) 3. Which elements of Korean Dramas will interest you in watching them (Multiple choices): □casts □plots □reputation □director □screenwriter □special effects 4. What is your favorite genre of Korean Drama (Multiple choices): □romance □school life □suspense □sci-fi □action □historical drama □comedy 5. Have you watched the Korean Drama, “My love who from the star” (來自星星的你): □Yes (Please skip Question 7) □No (Please answer Question 7) 6. If not, have you heard of anyone discussing it, or seen its advertisement: □Yes □No (If answering this question, please answer Question 10) 7. If yes, how did you watch this drama: □on TV □online broadcasting platform □others______8. Which element of this drama interested you in watching “My love who from the star”(來自星星的你) (Multiple choices): □casts □plots □reputation □screenwriter □special effects □others______9. Will you purchase products appearing in the drama: □Yes □Likely □No (THE END OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE, THANKS FOR HELPING.)