How the viral Baby Shark video created a $400m enterprise | EUROtoday

When Kim Min-seok gave the go-ahead in June 2016 to publish a 90-second clip of a kids’s track, he had no concept what he was unleashing.

It turned a worldwide phenomenon, clocking up greater than 16 billion views – YouTube’s most watched video ever.

That track was the extremely catchy Baby Shark.

Not solely has it captivated toddlers and terrorised adults all over the world, it laid the foundations for its creator Pinkfong to change into a media enterprise value lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}.

“We didn’t expect it to stand out from our other content,” said Mr Kim, Pinkfong’s chief executive, told the BBC from the firm’s headquarters in Seoul.

“But looking back, it became a major turning point that set the stage for our global journey.”

On Tuesday, that journey took Pinkfong to the South Korean inventory market, the place its shares rose by greater than 9% on their debut, giving it a valuation of greater than $400m (£304m).

Founded in 2010 as SmartStudy, the agency made digital content material for youngsters as much as 12 years of age.

It had simply three workers, together with Mr Kim and the agency’s chief expertise officer, Dongwoo Son.

“The office was tiny – even smaller than this,” recalled Mr Kim, gesturing to the convention room he was calling from.

It was so small “we didn’t even expect a salary at the time”, he mentioned by a translator.

Pinkfong went by a number of main overhauls, together with shifting its focus to toddlers.

The agency grew to round 100 workers and prioritised easier, learning-based video games and content material. “And that’s when Baby Shark emerged,” Mr Kim mentioned.

The firm has been often known as Pinkfong since 2022, a reputation impressed by a cheerful and curious fox that featured in one in every of its early cartoons.

It now has round 340 workers, with places of work in Tokyo, Shanghai and Los Angeles.

Baby Shark is believed to have originated within the US within the Seventies and was usually sung at kids’s summer time camps.

The track, which repeats the phrase “Baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo” is “attractive for children, though possibly annoying for adults,” mentioned media analyst Kevin Chew from the Nanyang Technological University.

Mr Kim can also be very conscious of simply how catchy it’s.

“It’s like a K-pop song. It’s very fast-paced, rhythmical and it’s addictive,” he mentioned, including that the tune has a “chanting” impact, which makes it straightforward for youngsters to recollect.

But it was an prompt hit and solely gained traction when its dance routine was featured at kids’s occasions in South East Asia.

Videos of youngsters and adults dancing to the track began to unfold on-line and the clip went viral.

There was a “festival-like feeling” within the Pinkfong workplace, because the crew watched its viewing numbers soar, Mr Kim mentioned.

In November 2020, the Baby Shark clip claimed the title of YouTube’s most seen.

It generated round half of the agency’s income within the years instantly after the video’s launch and have become a springboard for brand spanking new content material and merchandise, he mentioned.

But Pinkfong confronted a authorized problem in 2019 when it was accused of plagiarising the work of an American composer.

South Korea’s Supreme Court rejected the case, after the corporate argued that its model was derived from a people track within the public area.

The victory, Mr Kim mentioned, gave the agency a raise as its shares went public.

Pinkfong’s different franchises like Bebefinn and Sealook are rising quick however the agency should show its success isn’t just reliant on Baby Shark, mentioned Korea University enterprise lecturer Min Jung Kim.

The firm’s audience is a significant plus as toddlers have a tendency to observe the identical materials repeatedly, she mentioned.

Kim Min-seok insists his enterprise can develop past Baby Shark, which presently accounts for a couple of quarter of Pinkfong’s income. Meanwhile, Bebefinn has leapt forward, producing roughly 40% of the agency’s earnings.

One dad or mum informed the BBC that his household has blended emotions about Pinkfong’s movies.

Father of two Saleem Nashef mentioned he appreciates the tutorial qualities of the agency’s content material however his spouse thinks Baby Shark is “too over-stimulating for kids”.

Still, the viral video is outwardly inescapable, as his daughter, who’s about to show three, could have a Baby Shark-themed party.

Whether Pinkfong can create different characters to match Baby Shark’s industrial enchantment stays unclear, mentioned Prof Kim.

It raised virtually $52m in its inventory market debut and plans to make use of the cash to increase its line-up of movies and characters, mentioned Mr Kim.

The firm additionally goals to change into a “tech-driven” content material creator, utilizing viewing patterns and different knowledge to form its new tasks.

Pinkfong has already achieved “what many creators have always dreamed of,” Mr Kim mentioned.

But now it should present traders that it isn’t only a one-hit marvel.