Once cultural leaders, many brands now chase fleeting trends in the hope of relevance, often landing somewhere between forgettable and cringe. To build enduring fame, brands need more than stunts. They need soft power.
The phenomenal success of Kpop Demon Hunters, now Netflix’s most-watched movie ever with a Billboard Top 10 soundtrack, highlights timeless truths essential for shaping culture and building a magnetic brand. It shows how brands can win lasting relevance by captivating the hearts and minds of people from all walks of life at scale.
The global cultural compass has long been shifting east, led by South Korea's ‘Hallyu’ or ‘K-wave’, a masterclass in cultivating ‘soft power’. It represents a carefully constructed and curated commercialisation of culture as a worldwide export. From K-pop to K-dramas to beauty and gaming, Hallyu has attracted millions.
Kpop Demon Hunters is the latest example. Blending music, folklore and emotional resonance, it is a film that has not only broken Netflix’s records but also led the platform to break its own rules, spawning singalong theatre events and sustaining momentum far beyond the usual content spike.
Within this success are lessons that brands everywhere can adopt to build cultural relevance and long-term fame.
Humans crave escapism when life feels overwhelming. K-culture offers depth, connection, and optimism, creating heightened narratives that resonate deeply. Many say they value the messages of self-acceptance and hope as a counter to Western media that feels negative, stressful and heavy. In an international study, young fans said that Korean culture brings joy, belonging, and even supports their mental health.
Brands should take note: create lighter, fresher spaces, focus deeply rather than trying to do it all, and prioritise entertainment over interruption. It starts with building something tangible for a select few that creates enough of a ripple effect to draw the masses in.
Brands often jump from campaign to campaign, with marketers growing bored of ads long before audiences do. K-culture leans into immersive journeys and character arcs that audiences relate to and engage with for years. Refreshingly, some brands are now embracing world-building, especially in categories such as lifestyle and fashion, while others use characters as distinctive brand assets.
We need more of these layered journeys, imaginative stories and symbolism that people feel invested in. Unsurprisingly, many still fondly remember Rhonda and Ketut from nearly a decade ago, who even made a nostalgic comeback in 2021. Wonder if they’ll make another appearance sometime soon?
Despite a backdrop which feels politically charged and growing polarisation, Gen Z and Gen Alpha's global curiosity drives their hunger for new experiences and ideas. Yet, many brands stumble, resorting to woke-washing or retreating from their DE&I commitments.
The real opportunity lies in enduring collaborations with grassroots creators and cultural instigators. Kpop Demon Hunters didn’t try to cash in on K-culture tropes, instead it excelled by reflecting local life and culturally coded nuances and subtleties, which many might have excluded in pursuit of mainstream appeal.
Kpop Demon Hunters leaned heavily into folklore and dark themes, blending them effortlessly with a classic coming-of-age story arc. It wasn’t just a clichéd good vs. evil battle; the darkness was front and centre. Humans are inherently drawn to such themes. Case in point: global hits like Stranger Things, Squid Game and Wednesday or brands like Liquid Death with their twisted ways. More broadly, even packaging with darker undertones and imagery is becoming a way to grab attention at shelves.
Maybe it’s time for brands to ditch the squeaky-clean approach and get a little less PC.
It’s when we design for genuine memorability, without forgetting the basics of behaviour and enduring human truths, that the magic happens. In this case, music became the universal language, not just a backdrop, but a core part of the story and character development. This created one of the most memorable, unifying (and in turn shareable) aspects of the film.
Long after the buzz fades, what will endure is the stretch of its assets and fandom fuelled by UGC. A utopia that K-culture has mastered. Something many brands envy, but few achieve.
The reality today is that too many brands sacrifice ‘pull’ for short-term ‘push’, especially bigger ones.
Sure, the stakes are high, but equally, there’s no dearth of insurgent brands stealing the spotlight in practically every sector.
The evidence is consistent. Campaigns that entertain, stir emotion and build memory structures outperform those that chase the next big thing.
The lesson from K-culture is not about copying a single franchise but about understanding what it takes to cut through. Meaningful cultural exports thrive because they connect deeply, not because they mirror trends. Cultural power comes from the ability to shape preferences through appeal and attraction - narratives, characters and symbolism that people want to return to, not from content designed to be glanced at and forgotten.
Emotional precision, world-building, credible co-creation, a touch of tension and assets designed for memorability are the qualities that can reverse effectiveness decline and build enduring cultural fame.
So next time you evaluate brand performance, alongside hard metrics, check your brand’s soft power.
Aliya Hasan, Head of Strategy, Nature.
