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 track, 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 track 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 develop into a media enterprise price a whole bunch 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 govt, informed the BBC from the agency’s headquarters in Seoul.

“However trying 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 kids as much as 12 years of age.

It had simply three staff, 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 way of a translator.

Pinkfong went by way 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 often called Pinkfong since 2022, a reputation impressed by a cheerful and curious fox that featured in one among 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 Seventies and was typically sung at youngsters’s summer time camps.

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

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

“It is like a Okay-pop track. It is very 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.

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

Movies of kids and adults dancing to the track 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 spanking 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 track within the public area.

The victory, Mr Kim stated, gave the agency a carry as its shares went public.

Pinkfong’s different franchises like Bebefinn and Sealook are rising quick however the agency should show its success is not only reliant on Child Shark, stated Korea College enterprise lecturer Min Jung Kim.

The corporate’s audience 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 the moment 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 informed the BBC that his household has combined 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 outwardly 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 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 develop into 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 at all times dreamed of,” Mr Kim stated.

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