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 youngsters’s tune, he had no thought what he was unleashing.

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

That tune 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 grow to be a media enterprise value tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.

“We didn’t count on 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 wanting again, it turned a serious 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 youngsters as much as 12 years of age.

It had simply three workers, together with Mr Kim and the agency’s chief expertise 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 count on a wage on the time”, he stated by a translator.

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

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

The corporate has been often called 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 workers, with workplaces 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 youngsters’s summer time camps.

The tune, which repeats the phrase “Child shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo” is “engaging for youngsters, 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 Ok-pop tune. It’s extremely fast-paced, rhythmical and it is addictive,” he stated, including that the tune has a “chanting” impact, which makes it straightforward for youngsters to recollect.

Nevertheless it was an immediate hit and solely gained traction when its dance routine was featured at youngsters’s occasions in South East Asia.

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

There was a “festival-like feeling” within the Pinkfong workplace, because the workforce 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 Court docket rejected the case, after the corporate argued that its model was derived from a folks tune within the public area.

The victory, Mr Kim stated, gave the agency a elevate 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 target market is a serious 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 few quarter of Pinkfong’s income. In the meantime, Bebefinn has leapt forward, producing roughly 40% of the agency’s earnings.

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

Father of two Saleem Nashef stated he appreciates the academic 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 celebration.

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

It raised nearly $52m in its inventory market debut and plans to make use of the cash to develop its line-up of movies and characters, stated Mr Kim.

The corporate additionally goals to grow to be a “tech-driven” content material creator, utilizing viewing patterns and different information to form its new tasks.

Pinkfong has already achieved “what many creators have all the time dreamed of,” Mr Kim stated.

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