Ankita's guide to convert your friends into K-Drama Watchers
If you've never heard of Playlist Global, here is all you need to know.
It is a South Korean mobile drama / short film production company that primarily shares its original content on social media networks including Facebook and Youtube. It's attained over 4.5 million followers across it's various platforms. Some of its most popular web dramas are Seventeen and Love Playlist.
MyDramaList had the privilege of getting to know more about this company directly from the CEO of Playlist Global, Mr. Park Tae Won.
THE INTERVIEW
- When and how did you come up with the idea of Playlist Global?
We started Playlist as a part of SNOW (a mobile photo app) for app promotion, but decided to separate and found a new company after seeing [the] huge popularity of its drama among digital natives. Love Playlist is the first drama, then 6 more titles have been developed since early 2017. We also believed going global to be an important milestone for us to become an influential studio, therefore, we translated all episodes and updated Playlist Global both on YouTube and Facebook.
- Your dramas have a real-life appeal to them, with real-life problems and real-life characters and yet somehow the dramas don't lose their glamorous appeal. How do you come up with these plots which are relatively common and yet you portray them so uniquely?
First, we focused on the '10s, 20s aged' audience who live on social platforms and never watch TV anymore. They still enjoy very conventional stories such as love, friendship, career and so on with the only difference being on how they view that content. Second, we tend to limit running time within 10 minutes (or a maximum of 20 minutes). Since fans mostly view the content on mobile, it means we need to keep our audience's attention as quickly and as long as possible. Therefore, drama tend to be very fast and appealing to an engaged audience.
- What made you choose SNS as a platform to release your content?
We truly believe communicating with our audience to be crucial when developing new content. Social channels, e.g., YouTube and Facebook, can be very valuable as we leverage those platforms to distribute our episodes, engage with millions of viewers, communicate via comments, analyze those metric and come up with new ideas. And it can all happen simultaneously.
- What are your future goals for Playlist Global?
We would like to become a powerhouse of storytelling in that our new stories will be born and shared on many devices, platforms and channels. Our drama is just one shape of our IP. It can be either game, show, movie and so on.
- Will we see these mini-dramas turned into a full-sized drama season any time soon?
A new era will come very soon where the distinction between TV and digital entertainment becomes more blurred. It does not mean that TV will disappear anytime soon. However, differences of drama quality, production costs, casting and broadcasting channels will be difficult to distinguish between TV and digital entertainment. We would like to become a major source of storytelling when there will be no clear distinction between a mini-drama and a full-sized drama.
- What is the one of the funniest memory related to Playlist Global?
Localization is, sometimes, very difficult as we need to pay attention to many details beyond simple translation, e.g. grammar, design and even cultural nuance. A few episodes are difficult to digest as there are very Korean specific cultural elements entangled into some of our dramas. We are always surprised to see our audience's positive reaction to our efforts.
- Was starting a production company always your dream?
Working at Google/YouTube for 7+years, I have always had a thirst for developing original content and guiding others to do the same. I am happy to leverage my expertise on digital, entertainment on digital native studio.
- What are some things you want MyDramaList users to know about your platform?
Even though we started making dramas as a stepping stone, we are coming out with new formats very soon. In one new program titled “RE:PLY”, we're releasing a new album every month in the format of a music drama. In addition, another show “SHOOT AND DIE” will be released in the coming month where you can find many K-Pop idols as well. Last but not least, once a new drama gets popular, we are always looking into developing a sequel to it, so please show your love to our dramas.
If you're interested in seeing more of Playlist Global's content, here are some of their social networks: Playlist Global's Youtube Channel | Playlist Global's Facebook Page | Playlist Global's Instagram Page
We have also embedded Playlist Global's videos on the relevant drama pages, so you can watch them directly on MyDramaList as well! Happy viewing!
Let us know what you thought of this article in the comments below!
