We all love an all-out, full-strength performance with all the bells and whistles! Mnet's Kingdom promises to give us everything and more! Last year we had an epic final battle between Pentagon and The Boyz! This year's installation will be no less! Let's go over a few things first. Kingdom showcases the best sides of bands as well as pushing their limits. They have short timelines and big stages all while doing incredible choreographies with epic storylines.
Fans who watch Kingdom, vote their hearts out trying to support their bands. Most fans understand the show to be a stage, where bands can do their best in their own style. However, Mnet markets the show to be a fight of the fittest. They try to market the championship as an end-all win for the best.
There are ups and downs to this marketing strategy. One is its ability to create high competition that draws people in. Secondly, it creates a get marketing push for people to see a major need to vote and make content for their artist. Ultimately, in the right environment, this helps build a sense of championship. The newest installation of Kingdom is a little less than perfect.
Mnet announced 3 groups last year which caused a social media storm. Headlining this year will be the returning champs The Boyz with Ateez and Stray Kids. Fans all over the globe were elated. Knowing the performances would be spectacular. However, they needed at least 3 more bands to start the show. Rumor had it the company was strong-arming bands to compete but, no one really knows. After all, who would want to go against the performance giant The Boyz and then global super groups Ateez and Stray Kids? I wouldn't blame any band for hesitating. Kingdoms' marketing strategy is to put one band on top and the others are shown as wanting. Which groups would want to compete knowing they would be perceived as such?
This is where the marketing gets messy. Mnet of course found more bands and announced BTOB, iKON, and SF9. The first iteration was mostly the same generation of groups. [Kpop has 4 generations reaching back to the '90s. 4th generation groups are those who debuted post-2018.] This second-year of Kingdom is labeled the Legendary War and has groups from early 3rd gen including; bands like BTOB and iKon. 3rd gen groups had to perform in some of the craziest moments of Kpop history. They have also been through more ups and downs than the 4th gens coming in. To put giants like BTOB in a ring with groups like Stray Kids or Ateez seems unfair to both and disrespectful.
Hopefully, Mnet respectfully markets this competition when they go live in April. Groups like BTOB and iKon have worked for more than a decade to keep their status and branding. As fans get swept up in the competition, let's remember to be gentle with our words and remember this is a show. It doesn't actually mean anything, and our groups will be number one to us no matter what. We all love a good competition, me more than most. However, let's not lose our perspective as we tweet and create content.
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