SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Korean content, ranging from BTS's K-pop to the K-cinema of "Parasite" and now the K-drama "Squid Game", are garnering great popularity worldwide. The curiosity into K-born content has instinctively led the global audience to Korean variety shows. In line with this trend, Gyeongsangbukdo (or North Gyeongsang province) and Arirang TV engaged in a project to promote the province globally by inviting online content creators with many global subscribers across the world.
As the birthplace of many Korean cultures where Confucius and Buddhist traditions remain intact, Gyeongsangbukdo is packed with a diverse array of Hallyu (the Korean Wave) hot spots including the filming locations for Netflix's "Kingdom." The province selected a few among those spots to produce a series of online content in form of Korean variety shows with content creators and influencers. It plans to distribute the entertainment content via Arirang TV and other online platforms, depicting the beautiful landscape and diverse culinary experiences as fun content that can be viewed anywhere around the world.
The show contains three fun factors, and the first factor depicts fun in a formal sense of the word. It adopts the style of busking-variety shows that has been gaining popularity in Korea. The show will present non-Korean content creators who can speak Korean and have a professional singing career in Korea, singing songs that can easily resonate with Koreans. As all of the four content creators in the show are women, the series is cleverly titled "BUSQUEEN."
Gyeongsangbukdo's Global Promotion by means of Content Creator Variety Show with Arirang TV
The downside of busking is that it can easily get tedious when its singers are not good. Here, the second fun factor kicks in - quizzes and challenges. The cast members will solve quizzes and complete missions related to their busking sites within Gyeongsangbukdo so that the audience will get the sense of indirectly engaging in the questions and games, making it both informative and fun.
The third fun factor is the show's backdrops. The busking sites in the show are carefully selected charms of the province. Located in the three cities of Uljin, Pohang, and Gyeongju, the background scenery of every episode will offer what it's like to be surrounded by the cities' coasts, mountains, cultures, and history.
Every episode will display magnificent views of the province that will make you feel like you're watching a scenic music video. It's safe to say that the show is packed with attractions- a show, on top of the province's spectacular locations, that invites foreigners to sing popular Korean songs and engage in quizzes and games that introduce Gyeongsangbukdo.
The show will air from October to December on Arirang TV World Channel, EBC Asia Channel, and Anhui TV.
All episodes of the show and the behind-the-scenes videos of the cast members are currently available on Arirang TV YouTube channel "Rang Mate." (https://youtu.be/6A1q01cgaSQ)
The four cast members of the show are influential content creators with about 4 million subscribers all together whose global recognition is expected to bring about a great online marketing effect.
Cast |
Intro |
Jiang Li |
A celebrity influencer with a total of 2.2 million followers on Weibo and Yizhibo alone and about 2.8 million subscribers in other platform channels. Jiang's experience living in Korea inspires her to create diverse content related to Korea and China. |
Lara Benito |
A "Topgoal Rhapsody" winner and a YouTuber from Spain with more than 500 thousand subscribers from her two channels in Korean and Spanish and 100 thousand followers on other platforms such as Instagram. |
Jyunky |
An influencer with the longest singing career in Korea among the cast members. Jyunky is fluent in Korean and is most well acquainted with living in Korea and the Korean culture. She has about 600 thousand Weibo followers and 100 thousand followers on other platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. |
Lina Hassan |
A Lebanese YouTuber, an Arab descendant, and Miss Lebanon. Lina is particularly interested in beauty. Her infatuation with the Korean culture got her to pursue her education in Korea. She currently has 260 thousand YouTube subscribers and 60 thousand Instagram followers who view her content on Hallyu. |
The interesting part of this project is the follow-up family tour led by the four cast members after the show was over. The cast produced another set of tour content on other Gyeongsangbukdo cities of Uiseong, Yeongju, and Sangju which provide the opportunity to explore tourist attractions that were otherwise unknown by the global audience.
They created 49 online content materials including vlogs, and blog and Instagram posts which have already exceeded 2 million views.
This tourism promotion project that employed a tour-variety entertainment structure is expected to raise the global profile of Gyeongsangbukdo and contribute to attracting more foreign tourists visiting the province in the era of "With-Corona."
