Gangnam style craze

As of today 30 Sept, the Gangnam style video by singer, songwriter and choreographer PSY of Korea has been viewed by more than 300 million viewers in Youtube. With an average of 4 million views per day since its publication in Youtube on 15 July 2012, it is a very phenomenal video and is climbing the Youtube popularity chart for the most viewed video which is now being topped by Justin Bieber with 777 Million views. Gangnam style song has already penetrated the UK and US Charts with several localized copycats around the world such as KL style and Singapore style.

 

This phenomenon is rare worldwide as even K-Pop has not breached the world music scene except in east Asia. In the home front, this is not unusual as Malaysian music appreciation is very flexible. Hindi music has been a craze here since 1950s, especially Malays who adore the beauty and handsomeness of the Hindi movie stars. Ironically these movie stars are not singing the songs they purported to sing in the movies and the Malays do not even understand Hindi!

 

PSY is not only an international household name from Korea. Samsung is another. Samsung was founded in 1938 and ventured into Communication and Electronics market in 1977 and initiated its mobile communication business in 1983. It had several issues with its Korea domestic communication market until it gave an ultimatum to itself in 1993, to win the Korea market competition in one year or Samsung will close its communication business. Within a year Samsung improved its mobile device and started to capture the local market. In 1998, Samsung then ventured into international market and after several communication creations and well receipt innovations, Samsung is now among the world leader in electronics and communication industry. Its success had also made other market leaders trembled and did whatever they could to stop Samsung’s progress.

 

Going back further in history, Korea was mostly unknown except probably for the Korean War post World War II. Compared to China and Japan history, a lot more familiarity will be with Chinese Great Wall of China and Samurai from Japan than whatever else of Korea. Korea was just a country being fought over by these two regional giants.

 

What then made the difference with Korea today? We may find the answers by looking at PSY and Samsung traits for success.

 

PSY is an overweight and not good looking Korean star. He is not a common K-Pop star material. However PSY’s ingenuity in creating new dance steps with a mainstream popular music beat stole the fans heart in such a short time. So we can say that ingenuity is a lot more important than physical looks. PSY stands out from the rest with his ingenuity while K-Pop stars are just mere beauty and handsome looks.

 

Let us look at Samsung, it ventured into the Korea local mobile communication business 10 years behind the world market leader at that time, Motorola. In electronics, 10 years would probably be equivalent to a century! Samsung then was trailing behind Motorola for the next 10 years until it reviewed its position and made a tough decision, either made it work or they would stop. With a timeline of 1 year, Samsung’s technical staff scrambled and came up with a product that eventually captured the Korean market. It went further to create and innovate in order to venture into and capture the world market. So making assessment of one’s position with the ability to create and innovate pulled out Samsung from the pits and brought it to the top.

 

So let us recap. Ingenuity or creativity, assessment and innovation are the take ways from PSY and Samsung success. How then we convert this for our use

1. Ingenuity or creativity– this trait will differentiate us from the rest. Coming up with original and attractive ideas are tough. However it will bring us to the forefront and we will be known as the pioneer of the new invention. So making another copycat KL or Singapore style is not ingenuity or creativity. 
2. Assessment or review- this trait allows us to look back and work for the future. By looking back, we are able to look at the gaps and identify measures to close them. What had been our failures in the past should not be repeated and previous successes should be leveraged upon for more success in the future. We need to be tough during self assessment or review in order to progress. Some of the gaps maybe due to our own mistakes and making changes may be uncomfortable. So a lot more sacrifice is required to attain success if this is the case.  
3. Innovation- this trait allows us to be better than the next person who is bidding for the same position as us. Innovation is not creating a totally new idea however it is creating noticeable and acceptable differences which are perceived to be better from our previous position or from the competitor’s position. Innovation needs to be progressively done with the next innovation to be better than the previous one. This will ensure us to be always on the top of others.