During her recent impromptu press conference, Min Hee-jin, the CEO of ADOR, publicly called out K-pop agencies for boosting their sales through the inclusion of random photo cards of group members in their albums and hosting fan signing events for those who purchased a large number of albums. Min’s bold criticism of the industry’s long-standing issues earned her praise from K-pop fans. Her remarks sparked a strong reaction among fans, particularly those who have fallen victim to the “album gang”phenomenon, where people buy dozens or even hundreds of albums in hopes of obtaining the coveted photo card or a chance to attend a fan signing event.
Despite being from the industry, CEO Min’s comments were nothing more than a form of irony.
Random photo cards started with Girls’ Generation and Min Hee-jin
The photo card trend in the K-pop market began with the release of Girls’ Generation’s second full album, “Oh!”in 2010. The album contained randomly inserted photo cards of the group’s members, causing both domestic and international fans, including the “uncle fans,”to eagerly purchase the album.
To obtain photo cards featuring their favorite member, fans started buying multiple copies of the same album. This led to a culture of exchanging, buying, and selling the cards among fans. These albums, which gained immense popularity, also helped revive the declining music market as the streaming market emerged.
In the same year, Girls’ Generation made history as the first girl group to win the Daesang (Grand Prize) for their album at the Golden Disc Awards. This milestone was achieved with the release of their second full repackage album “Run Devil Run”and third mini album “Hoot.”
CEO Min, who has been with SM Entertainment (SM) since 2002 as a public recruitment employee, has made significant contributions to the albums of SM singers since 2009. She was solely credited for “Visual Direction”on the album “Oh,”which she also worked on.
The concept of photo cards, originally introduced and implemented by SM, is now being criticized as a “disease”by Min, a former creative director at the company. This has led some individuals in the industry to remark on the irony of the situation.
NewJeans Offers the Same Feature
Despite Min Hee-jin’s confident statement during the press conference implying that NewJeans does not do it, the industry’s perspective was the complete opposite. The prevailing belief was that NewJeans does indeed do it.
The ambiguity surrounding the term ‘random photocard’ stems from its similarity to the term ‘random album’.
NewJeans released their debut album in ten different versions, including the Weverse version, with six versions specifically tailored for each member. Due to the random distribution of these versions, fans of NewJeans were also required to participate in ‘album buying sprees’ in order to obtain all the desired versions.
Although there were criticisms surrounding the push sales fan sign events, NewJeans also organized various lucky draw events and fan sign events in order to increase album sales. This strategic move ultimately led to the achievement of three consecutive million-seller albums, proving that it was not a mere coincidence.
During the press conference, Min Hee-jin clarified, “NewJeans does not include random photocards. While there have been discussions about having random albums, the reason behind our decision is because including every photo of the celebrities in one album would make it more like an encyclopedia. Additionally, having non-random photocards would lead to natural comparisons of the members’ popularity, which I strongly dislike.”
Although it may seem like a reasonable explanation, it can also be perceived as a double standard. The approach of motivating fans to purchase albums in order to reach their objectives is essentially the same. The arbitrary albums introduced by Min Hee-jin could potentially be condemned as ‘unethical’ by future producers.
The source can be found at daum .
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