How the viral Baby Shark video created a $400m business

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

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

That music was the extremely catchy Child Shark.

Not solely has it captivated toddlers and terrorised adults around the world, it laid the foundations for its creator Pinkfong to turn into a media enterprise price lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.

“We didn’t anticipate it to face out from our different content material,” stated Mr Kim, Pinkfong’s chief government, instructed the BBC from the agency’s headquarters in Seoul.

“However trying again, it turned a significant turning level that set the stage for our world 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).

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

It had simply three staff, together with Mr Kim and the agency’s chief know-how officer, Dongwoo Son.

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

It was so small “we did not even anticipate a wage on the time”, he stated by means of a translator.

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

The agency grew to round 100 staff and prioritised less complicated, learning-based video games and content material. “And that is when Child Shark emerged,” Mr Kim stated.

The corporate has been generally known as Pinkfong since 2022, a reputation impressed by a cheerful and curious fox that featured in one in all its early cartoons.

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

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

The music, which repeats the phrase “Child shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo” is “enticing for kids, although presumably annoying for adults,” stated media analyst Kevin Chew from the Nanyang Technological College.

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

“It is like a Okay-pop music. It’s totally fast-paced, rhythmical and it is addictive,” he stated, including that the tune has a “chanting” impact, which makes it straightforward for kids to recollect.

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

Movies of kids and adults dancing to the music began to unfold on-line and the clip went viral.

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

In November 2020, the Child 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 new content material and merchandise, he stated.

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

South Korea’s Supreme Courtroom rejected the case, after the corporate argued that its model was derived from a folks music within the public area.

The victory, Mr Kim stated, 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 Child Shark, stated Korea College enterprise lecturer Min Jung Kim.

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

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

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

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

Nonetheless, the viral video is seemingly inescapable, as his daughter, who’s about to show three, can have a Child Shark-themed birthday celebration.

Whether or not Pinkfong can create different characters to match Child Shark’s industrial enchantment stays unclear, stated 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, stated Mr Kim.

The corporate additionally goals to turn 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 at all times dreamed of,” Mr Kim stated.

However now it should present buyers that it’s not only a one-hit marvel.