Aespa beats Blackpink to rank second behind BTS in Idol Brand Reputation for October
The Korea Corporate Reputation Research Institute (KCRRI) is an entity that records the Reputation Ranking of idols or idol groups that exist in the K-pop industry. Every month, the institute releases the ranking for various categories. Various idols as well as idol groups are ranked according to their brand reputations for each month of the year. Members of BTS have been dominating these charts for individual male idol and group categories while Blackpink dominated the female idol brand reputation category.
According to the October 2021 analysis of idol groups based on their brand reputation, BTS was ranked first. While it is highly unusual for a rookie group to do so, Aespa (stylized as aespa) has managed to snag up the top position for female groups by beating Blackpink. The KCRRI extracted the data from September 30 to October 30 to record the reputation of each of the K-pop groups in the industry over the last month and Aespa comes out at the top all thanks to their last comeback in October.
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The top groups on the Idol Brand Reputations list
For this particular month, many K-pop idol groups were ranked on the basis of their brand reputation, their consumer participation index, their media as well as their communication index. The top K-pop group for the month of October was BTS who took the top spot. They were followed by Aespa in the second place which is highly unlikely for a rookie group. Aespa was followed by groups Blackpink, NCT, Seventeen, Twice, Lovelyz, Oh My Girl, EXO, and Stacey.
The director of the institute, Koo Changhwan, said, “The BTS brand ranked first in the idol group brand reputation rankings in October 2021.” BTS did not have a single South Korean album comeback this year as they released a total of three singles.
Aespa ranks second among big K-pop groups
Following BTS is the pop group Aespa which debuted in the year 2020. With the release of their first single ‘Black Mamba’ only a year ago, Aespa debuted on November 17 last year. Following that, Aespa released ‘Next Level’ six months after their debut on May 17, 2021, and which was again an overnight success. Aespa released their first mini-album ‘Savage’ on October 5.
In only 11 months since their debut, the group has come out to be one of the most popular groups in K-pop as they entered ten Billboard charts including the main charts, Billboard 200 as well as Artist 100. On October 19, Aespa became the first female group from the fourth generation of K-pop to hit #1 on Billboards World Album Sales. Moving on, Aespa came to be recognized by Forbes Magazine as they mentioned that the girl group from SM Entertainment had managed to reach heights that no other Korean group has in the American market. With this new Idol Brand Reputation ranking, Aespa has proved that only the sky is the limit.
On the current ranking chart, Aespa recorded a total of 1,066,736 points in terms of the Participation index, 1,554,357 points for the Media index, 742,569 points for the Communication index, 1,777,310 points for the Community index as well a 5,122,971 points on the Brand Reputations index.