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      Omega X Members Say Their K-pop Agency Mistreated Them

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      A public dispute between band members and the head of their agency has revived concerns about whether South Korean entertainment agencies exploit young musicians.Members of the K-pop group Omega X seemed to be riding high a few weeks ago when their first international tour ended with a successful gig in Los Angeles.But that feeling of triumph was short lived.After the October show, an executive from their management agency screamed at the group at an L.A. hotel and pushed one band member to the ground, footage of the encounter appeared to show. The band members then flew home to Seoul at their own expense and later took their entertainment agency to court.At a hearing on Wednesday, a South Korean judge will consider the request of the group’s 11 members to be released from their multiyear contracts with the agency, Spire Entertainment. Lawyers for the band have said the executive’s behavior in Los Angeles was the latest episode in a yearlong pattern of verbal, physical and sexual abuse. The executive, Kang Seong-hee, resigned last month but has denied any wrongdoing.“I took care of all of them like their mother,” Ms. Kang told The New York Times in a phone interview, adding that Kim Jaehan, 27, the band member who fell at the hotel, had collapsed on his own. She said she hoped the band would resume its normal activities with the agency.Experts on K-pop say the band’s accusations against their agency, if true, would be consistent with other stories from industry insiders and whistleblowers. They say some management companies, especially smaller ones, routinely exploit young artists who are desperate to become K-pop idols by imposing strict controls on their behavior and in some cases subjecting them to verbal and physical abuse.Since the 1990s, “the level of exploitation has been systematized and also normalized because the K-pop industry has become dominant” and more ambitious young people have been drawn to it, said Jin Lee, a scholar of Asian pop cultures and a research fellow at Curtin University in Australia.“Everyone wants to be an idol,” she said.The Fine PrintWorkers in South Korea, a deeply hierarchical society, are increasingly speaking up about bosses who abuse their authority. But experts say that most working K-pop artists don’t publicly criticize their agencies because they fear the consequences of violating their contracts.Omega X onstage during their international tour in October.Omega XKim Youna, an entertainment lawyer in Seoul, said smaller agencies in particular have tended to sign rising musicians to contracts that don’t define work hours or set limits on what the artists can be reasonably asked to do.Regulations governing contracts between artists and their agencies have been around for only about 25 years in South Korea, Ms. Kim said. Other industries in the country have robust labor laws. “In this context, it seems that idols, considered the less powerful parties, have no choice but to suffer a little loss,” she said.Some of the losses are financial. It is common, for example, for agencies to ask artists to pay back the costs of the training they received, such as dance lessons, vocal coaching and other preparation. But there are often questions about how transparently those debts are calculated, said Lee Jongim, a scholar of South Korea’s entertainment industry and the author of “Idol Trainees’ Sweat and Tears.”Aspiring K-pop stars “debut in their teens, but entertainment agents are adults,” she said. “So they start out in a structure in which it is difficult to establish an equal relationship.”Speaking OutSome K-pop musicians have waited until their contracts ended to accuse their agencies of mistreatment.In one example, Heo Min-sun, a member of the former group Crayon Pop, told the YouTube channel Asian Boss in 2019 that the band’s agency had withheld band members’ salaries for a year and half after their debut. She said it had also forced them to go on diets and prohibited them from socializing without the agency’s permission.“Our private lives were strictly controlled. Even if I wanted to make a new friend, I couldn’t,” Ms. Heo said in the 2019 interview. Crayon Pop’s agency, Chrome Entertainment, did not respond to a request for comment.In a 2019 criminal case, two K-pop musicians successfully took legal action against their agency before their contracts had expired.Those musicians — Lee Seok-cheol, now 22, and Lee Seung-hyun, now 20 — are brothers who performed in the boy band The East Light as teenagers. They accused their producer, their agency and its chief executive of assaulting and verbally threatening them. A court fined the agency, Media Line Entertainment, about $15,000 and sentenced the producer to 16 months in prison for child abuse. The chief executive received eight months for aiding and abetting child abuse.Another case, though technically successful, is widely seen as a cautionary tale.Three former members of the group TVXQ struggled for years to appear on television after ending their contract with SM Entertainment, one of South Korea’s most powerful agencies.. The country’s antitrust regulators eventually ordered SM Entertainment to stop pressuring cable channels to blacklist members of the band from appearing on TV.The agency denied the commission’s findings. But CedarBough T. Saeji, an expert on the K-pop industry at Pusan National University, said that the band members had been “unofficially blacklisted from the K-pop industry.” The episode sent “a chilling message to younger idols that crossing a powerful company could be the end of their career, even if they achieve a legal goal,” she added.‘A Lot of Anxiety’After Kim Jaehan’s altercation with Ms. Kang at the hotel in Los Angeles on Oct. 22, a South Korean television network published blurred-out footage of the episode that a bystander had filmed. When the band returned to Seoul, its members took the rare step of creating an Instagram account without permission from their agency, as would normally be required. In another rare step, they aired their allegations of abuse at a news conference.“Every one of us is experiencing a lot of anxiety,” Mr. Kim said at the news conference last month. The band members say that a few months after Omega X debuted in June 2021, Ms. Kang, Spire Entertainment’s chief executive at the time, began habitually making sexual remarks, touching their thighs, hands and faces against their wishes, and regularly forcing them to drink alcohol after rehearsals. Lawyers for the band have also said that Spire, a small agency founded in 2020, ordered each band member pay the agency about $300,000 in debt incurred from their training. ‌So far the band’s lawyers have not filed a criminal complaint or presented any physical evidence to corroborate their accusations, citing concerns that doing so would suggest they were trying to influence the civil proceedings that begin on Wednesday. They said their current focus was on getting the band out of their contract, not pressing charges.In an interview last week, Ms. Kang denied the band members’ accusations. Her request for them to cover her agency’s debts was justified, she added, and she believes that the band members have accused her of abuse in order to justify moving to a larger agency.“In their opinion, our company does not have enough to nurture them,” Ms. Kang said, referring to the company’s financial resources. “So they are conducting a witch hunt.”Looking AheadOmega X’s fate may depend on how the South Korean public reacts to the band’s side of the story, said Ms. Lee, the pop culture scholar. If the dispute escalates and its members can rally more public support, she said, Spire Entertainment may allow them to break their contract.At least two companies that work with Spire abroad have cut ties since the scandal broke: Helix Publicity, which had been responsible for Omega X’s public relations in the United States, and Skiyaki, the company that held the license for Omega X’s activities in Japan. A number of people who worked or volunteered at concert venues on its recent two-month, 16-city tour of the United States and Latin America have also spoken up for Omega X. Gigi Granados, 25, a cosmetologist who attended a show at Palladium Times Square in New York City, said she had witnessed Ms. Kang screaming at members of the band at their hotel after the performance. “No one deserves to be yelled at that way,” she said. More

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      Did Crush Snub Black Fans at a Concert in South Korea?

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      The singer Crush apologized for a “misunderstanding” after the exchange, which highlights what experts call K-pop’s uneasy relationship with Black culture.It happens so fast in the videos that you need to rewatch them to notice: As Crush, a South Korean R&B singer, high-fives fans during a recent performance, he avoids an area where some Black concertgoers have extended their hands.A fan on Twitter called the episode, at a music festival in Seoul this month, an act of discrimination. When others piled on, some of Crush’s supporters pushed back, saying that videos showed him skipping other parts of the packed audience and warning fans about overcrowding.Crush apologized last week for what he called a “misunderstanding,” telling his 2.7 million Instagram followers that he had avoided high-fiving some fans out of concern for their safety. He also told The New York Times that he loved and respected Black culture and had not meant to offend anyone.“I would never intentionally act in a way that would disrespect nor offend any individual,” he said.The debate over the episode has called attention to what experts call an old problem: the K-pop industry’s struggle to develop the level of cultural sensitivity that fans in the United States and elsewhere expect.The criticism also highlights resentment that has built up for years among many Black fans who feel that K-pop acts adopt their culture but do not respect them, just as earlier generations of white musicians appropriated Black music and reaped the riches.“There are Black fans who love K-pop so much,” said CedarBough T. Saeji, an expert on the K-pop industry at Pusan National University in South Korea. “But they also do have a bone to pick with the way that their fandom has been ignored, and the way that their concerns about things like cultural appropriation have also been ignored.”The Big PictureCrush, 30, whose real name is Shin Hyo-seob, is an A-list K-pop star at a time when South Korea’s cultural exports are winning legions of new fans abroad. As the K-pop industry becomes increasingly international, more of its lyrics are being written in English, and agencies that promote K-pop acts are opening offices abroad.Crush’s record label, P Nation, was founded in 2018 by the singer Psy, whose breakout 2012 hit, “Gangnam Style,” helped K-pop carve out an international profile.The label’s chief executive, Lionel Kim, said it had always tried aggressively to scrutinize its artists’ content for cultural sensitivity.“We want to reach as many fans as we can around the world,” Kim said in an interview. “We’re extremely cautious to ensure that our artists and music videos do not disrespect any ethnicity or culture.”The K-pop group Exo performing at the Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018.Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto AgencyBut gaps in awareness have been frequent in South Korea, an ethnically homogeneous society that has generally been slow to welcome other cultures at home.“Some people don’t even know what counts as racist or not — and that includes artists,” said Gyu Tag Lee, a professor of cultural studies at George Mason University’s South Korea campus.Members of Exo, a boy band in Seoul, have been accused of making racist remarks during a live broadcast in which they applied makeup that resembled blackface. And last year, the Korean American rapper Jay Park removed the music video for his song “DNA Remix” after fans noted that some of the performers, who were not Black, wore hairstyles that included Afros, braids and dreadlocks.A Rising StarCrush has explored R&B, hip-hop, soul, jazz and other genres in his decade-long career. He began writing rap lyrics in middle school and listened to Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, James Ingram and other Black musicians in high school, he has told the South Korean news media. In 2018, he released a song that paid homage to Stevie Wonder.Last month, Crush released “Rush Hour,” a hit single with the rapper J-Hope of BTS. The lyrics are a mix of English and Korean, the style riffs on funk and hip-hop, and the music video was filmed on a New York City-inspired set.But frustration toward Crush has been building among Black K-pop fans since 2016, when he performed on a Korean television show wearing a mask with dark skin, big lips and frizzy hair — and did not apologize after the backlash that followed.Some fans were also disappointed when Crush removed an Instagram post two years ago about his donation to a George Floyd memorial fund in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Crush’s label, P Nation, told The Times last week that Crush had archived that post, along with dozens of others that were not related to music, later that year. The FalloutAfter the high-fiving episode at the 2022 Someday Pleroma festival this month, some Crush allies seemed to backtrack on their initial support.J-Hope “liked” Crush’s apology on Instagram. Devin Morrison, a Black singer in Los Angeles who has also collaborated with Crush, wrote on Twitter that he had been astounded to see criticism of “an artist who has treated me and my (Black) friends with nothing but respect and kindness.”But J-Hope’s like and Morrison’s tweet later disappeared. Neither artist responded to requests for comment.Some Black fans took a nuanced view of the episode, saying that they were frustrated less with Crush than with the culture of racial bias that they feel pervades the K-pop industry.Videos of Crush “skipping over the Black fans seemed unlike him, but it didn’t seem like it was unlike K-pop,” said Akeyla Vincent, 32, an African American public-school teacher in South Korea. Melissa Limenyande, 29, a Black South African who also teaches in South Korea, said she believed Crush’s explanation that he had acted out of concern for fans’ safety.At the same time, she said, she has struggled to reconcile her enjoyment of K-pop with what she sees as its creators’ insensitivity toward other cultures.“I like these artists so much and I love their music and their personalities,” she said. “But if I can take my time to learn about their culture or where they come from, why can’t they do the same?” More

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      BTS Performs Live in Seoul for First Time in Over 2 Years

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      SEOUL — Elated fans of BTS gathered on Thursday for the K-pop group’s first live concert in South Korea in over two years, an event that was expected to draw as many as 15,000 people — despite Covid restrictions that barred cheering, screaming or singing.“It still feels like a dream,” said Park Hyunjun, 40, a freelance video producer from the city of Incheon, west of Seoul. Outside Seoul Olympic Stadium on Thursday, she held a poster bearing the concert’s slogan: “Of course, nothing has changed between us.”It was the first large-scale gathering of BTS fans in South Korea since the band’s last concert in their home country, in October 2019. The multibillion-dollar act performed live in Los Angeles in November, but for most of the pandemic it has been livestreaming instead.In 2020, the group set a Guinness world record for attracting the most viewers for a livestreamed music concert. The pandemic did not only pause the band’s live concerts: Five of BTS’s seven members have been infected with the coronavirus. They have since recovered from Covid-19.The concert Thursday, the largest approved by the South Korean government since the pandemic began, was taking place amid an Omicron wave that has driven caseloads in the country to unprecedented highs. On Thursday, the health authorities reported 327,549 new daily cases. But the government, which says the country must learn to live with the virus, has been loosening some restrictions.In and around the stadium on Thursday, 750 safety personnel were enforcing virus protocols, muting the festivities somewhat.“Please get moving once you’re done taking pictures,” fans taking group photos in front of the stadium’s entrance were told. “Please keep your distance to prevent the spread of Covid.”Fans’ temperatures were being taken before they entered the stadium. Rapid antigen kits were being made available for people with high temperatures, said the band’s agency, Hybe. And concertgoers had to enter through designated entrances, and during specific time slots, so they would not flow in all at once.Fans were also prohibited from cheering, screaming or singing along during the concert, and they had to keep their masks on, except to drink water. And attendance at the stadium, which can seat about 70,000 people, was being limited to 15,000.“I’m curious what kind of atmosphere there will be with everyone masked and no one screaming,” said Yu Haram, 17, who has followed the band for four years and was about to see them live for the first time.Throughout the pandemic, Ms. Yu said, she had followed the band online, sometimes gathering with her classmates to watch livestreams together. “I’m finally seeing them,” she said, “and I’m nervous.”The concert was the first of a three-day series, with more scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. It was being livestreamed for people who couldn’t attend in person.Yang Ji-woong, 15, said he had listened to the BTS song “Mikrokosmos” throughout the pandemic alone in his room and was looking forward to seeing it live.“I’m frankly a bit worried about Covid,” he said. “But I want to enjoy this moment as much as I can.” More

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      'Squid Game,' the Netflix Hit, Taps South Korean Fears

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      The dystopian Netflix hit taps South Korea’s worries about costly housing and scarce jobs, concerns familiar to its U.S. and international viewers.In “Squid Game,” the hit dystopian television show on Netflix, 456 people facing severe debt and financial despair play a series of deadly children’s games to win a $38 million cash prize in South Korea.Koo Yong-hyun, a 35-year-old office worker in Seoul, has never had to face down masked homicidal guards or competitors out to slit his throat, like the characters in the show do. But Mr. Koo, who binge-watched “Squid Game” in a single night, said he empathized with the characters and their struggle to survive in the country’s deeply unequal society.Mr. Koo, who got by on freelance gigs and government unemployment checks after he lost his steady job, said it is “almost impossible to live comfortably with a regular employee’s salary” in a city with runaway housing prices. Like many young people in South Korea and elsewhere, Mr. Koo sees a growing competition to grab a slice of a shrinking pie, just like the contestants in “Squid Game.”Those similarities have helped turn the nine-episode drama into an unlikely international sensation. “Squid Game” is now the top-ranked show in the United States on Netflix and is on its way to becoming one of the most-watched shows in the streaming service’s history. “There’s a very good chance it will be our biggest show ever,” Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive at Netflix, said during a recent business conference.Culturally, the show has sparked an online embrace of its distinct visuals, especially the black masks decorated with simple squares and triangles worn by the anonymous guards, and a global curiosity for the Korean children’s games that underpin the deadly competitions. Recipes for dalgona, the sugary Korean treat at the center of one especially tense showdown, have gone viral.A shop in Seoul selling “Squid Game”-themed dalgona.Heo Ran/ReutersLike “The Hunger Games” books and movies, “Squid Game” holds its audience with its violent tone, cynical plot and — spoiler alert! — a willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters. But it has also tapped a sense familiar to people in the United States, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices rise past affordable levels.“The stories and the problems of the characters are extremely personalized but also reflect the problems and realities of Korean society,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, said in an email. He wrote the script in 2008 as a film, when many of these trends had become evident, but overhauled it to reflect new worries, including the impact of the coronavirus. (Minyoung Kim, the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix, said the company was in talks with Mr. Hwang about producing a second season.)“Squid Game” is only the latest South Korean cultural export to win a global audience by tapping into the country’s deep feelings of inequality and ebbing opportunities. “Parasite,” the 2019 film that won best picture at the Oscars, paired a desperate family of grifters with the oblivious members of a rich Seoul household. “Burning,” a 2018 art-house hit, built tension by pitting a young deliveryman against a well-to-do rival for a woman’s attention.The masked guards in “Squid Game” mete out violence during the competitions.NetflixSouth Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” says Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is ranked No. 6.)As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.“In South Korea, all parents want to send their kids to the best schools,” Ms. Shin said. “To do that you have to live in the best neighborhoods.” That would require saving enough money to buy a house, a goal so unrealistic “that I’ve never even bothered calculating how long it will take me,” Ms. Shin said.Characters in the show receive invitations to participate in the Squid Game.Netflix“Squid Game” revolves around Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict in his 40s who doesn’t have the means to buy his daughter a proper birthday present or pay for his aging mother’s medical expenses. One day he is offered a chance to participate in the Squid Game, a private event run for the entertainment of wealthy individuals. To claim the $38 million prize, contestants must pass through six rounds of traditional Korean children’s games. Failure means death.The 456 contestants speak directly to many of the country’s anxieties. One is a graduate from Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, who is wanted for mishandling his clients’ funds. Another is a North Korean defector who needs to take care of her brother and help her mother escape from the North. Another character is an immigrant laborer whose boss refuses to pay his wages.The characters have resonated with South Korean youth who don’t see a chance to advance in society. Known locally as the “dirt spoon” generation, many are obsessed with ways to get rich quickly, like with cryptocurrencies and the lottery. South Korea has one of the largest markets for virtual currency in the world.Like the prize money in the show, cryptocurrencies give “people the chance to change their lives in a second,” said Mr. Koo, the office worker. Mr. Koo, whose previous employer went out of business during the pandemic, said the difficulty of earning money is one reason South Koreans are so obsessed with making a quick buck.“I wonder how many people would participate if ‘Squid Game’ was held in real life,” he said.Seong Gi-hun, the show’s protagonist, entering an arena for one of the games.Netflix More

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      Subway Product Placement Makes It a Star of Korean TV

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKorean TV’s Unlikely Star: Subway SandwichesThe sandwich chain’s aggressive use of product placement has made it a ubiquitous presence on the country’s television shows.Subway has appeared in at least 17 Korean shows, according to an informal tally by The New York Times.March 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETIn an episode of the Korean television show “The K2,” which takes place in a world of fugitives and bodyguards, a man is being treated with a defibrillator when he enters into a dream state. On the fringe of death, he recalls taking a past love to a Subway restaurant and to a park for a picnic, where he gently feeds her a sandwich and soft drink with the Subway logo facing the camera.The detail is not a narrative quirk. It is a result of South Korea’s broadcasting regulations and the aggressive use of product placement in the country’s shows by Subway, the American sandwich chain famous for its $5 foot-longs.“People joke, ‘If I had a drink every time Subway popped up, I’d be drunk before the first half is over,’” said Jae-Ha Kim, a journalist in Chicago who reviews Korean dramas. “Everyone here’s like, ‘I never got a Subway sandwich that looked that good, with that much meat.’”Product placement in TV shows is a reality the world over. But South Korea’s terrestrial stations are prevented from inserting commercial breaks during programming, meaning many Korean companies must be creative about getting their wares in front of viewers. As Korean dramas have become more popular with international audiences, global brands have pushed to be part of the action.And no company has pushed harder than Subway, which has grown into the world’s largest fast-food chain by store count since its founding in 1965 in Bridgeport, Conn.Colin Clark, the country director for Subway in South Korea, said product placements in popular dramas like “Descendants of the Sun” had a positive impact on global sales, specifically citing markets in China, Taiwan and Singapore.“I swear to you, it was a difference between night and day — before the product placement and after the product placement — the effect it had on the customers,” said Mr. Clark, who declined to provide specific sales figures.Subway’s country director in South Korea credits product placement in Korean dramas with a positive impact on global sales.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesSubway did not provide a total of how many Korean dramas its products had appeared in, but an informal tally by The New York Times counted appearances on 17 shows. That can add up to a lot of people seeing the company’s cold cuts. Netflix, with over 203 million worldwide members, has become a leading portal for Korean dramas. When the highly anticipated Korean drama “Sweet Home” was released on Netflix in December, 22 million viewers watched the show in its first month.By sleekly presenting its products on Korean dramas as a harbinger of cool, Subway is also presenting a fresh image to American viewers who are increasingly watching the shows.Recently, the company has faced scrutiny of its bread, which an Irish court ruled is not bread, and its tuna, which a lawsuit claimed is “anything but tuna.”But on TV, pristinely clean Subway shops pop with bright colors serve as the setting for business meetings, social gossip and dates for beautiful couples. Instead of cookies and tea, elderly Korean TV characters keep freshly wrapped Subway sandwiches at the ready — you never can know when an unexpected guest will drop by and crave an Italian sub.On the popular Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” North Korean soldiers and a South Korean businesswoman find common ground through Subway sandwiches.Product placement in Korean shows began in earnest in 2010, when South Korea’s stringent broadcasting laws eased restrictions on the practice in an effort to increase network revenues and promote Korean goods. In 2018, South Korea’s networks sold $114 million worth of product placement, up 15 percent from the previous year, according to Soobum Lee, a mass communication professor at Incheon National University.Shows collect an average of about $900,000 from product placements, although 2016’s “Descendants of the Sun” sold triple that amount, Mr. Lee said. It was also criticized by some viewers for excessive product placement.Other American companies, like Papa John’s Pizza, have used product placements in Korean dramas, but none are as ubiquitous as Subway.Ms. Kim said these kinds of shoehorned ads had become popular topics of discussion online, with some fans claiming they disrupt plots and threatening to stop watching altogether.She pointed to criticism of the show “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” (also known as “Goblin”) and a scene where it’s inferred that the protagonist prevents a man from committing suicide; in an effort to cheer him up, the suicidal man is handed a Subway sandwich. Subway is also celebrated in death; in another episode, the Grim Reaper is shown enjoying a meal from the chain.“I know in the U.S. people are sick of it,” Ms. Kim said of the product placement. “We’ve had Subway, we know it’s not good. Stop trying to make it seem good.”While American viewers may roll their eyes at Subway’s being portrayed as haute cuisine, Seung-Chul Yoo, a communications professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said product placement had been proved to work.Subway “tastes way better in South Korea,” said Seung-Chul Yoo, a communications professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesWhen the actress Jun Ji-hyun wore red lipstick on the 2013 series “My Love From the Star,” similar products sold out in stores throughout Asia. Books featured on Korean dramas have become best sellers.Marja Vitti, who covers Korean television for the website Dramabeans, said some fans had watched dramas to spot new products from companies before they were released to the public.“I seem to notice a new Samsung feature in every drama,” Ms. Vitti said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I guess we’re getting folding phones soon.’”Keeping up with trends, Subway has begun teasing new sandwiches on shows. In October, the company released its own mini-drama on YouTube, “Someway,” about a young woman who develops a crush on a Subway employee and regularly eats at his location to win his affection.Each episode begins with a character expressing fondness for a new sandwich variety, like one made with Altermeat, a meat substitute. The first episode of “Someway” has more than 1.3 million views.“There’s humor in the advertising we’re doing,” Subway’s Mr. Clark said. “As a brand, if you take yourself too seriously, you’re going to end up always getting into trouble.”Subway opened its first South Korea location in 1992. Now there are more than 430 Subways in the country, its second-largest footprint in Asia behind China.To continually appeal to its target demographic of 15- to 25-year-olds, Subway is also becoming more inventive with how it is presented. On the drama “Memories of the Alhambra,” gamers competing in an augmented reality game collected valuable swords and coins by going to Subway.In real life, newer restaurants with digital menu boards display the chain’s appearances on shows.Product placement “was a relatively cheap way to get us brand awareness,” said Mr. Clark, who has also overseen collaborations with the K-pop star Kang Daniel and a limited-edition Subway streetwear release with Fila. “It was something the other brands were doing, but weren’t really kind of owning that space the way Subway started doing.”Mr. Yoo said that in South Korea, Subway was generally viewed as a healthier option than burger chains, which added to its appeal. During the decade he lived in the United States he rarely ate at Subway, he said, but now he regularly enjoys its sandwiches in Seoul.“To be honest, it tastes way better in South Korea,” Mr. Yoo said.Brands like Subway will soon be able to do more traditional advertising on South Korean television. In January, the Korea Communications Commission announced plans to allow commercial breaks on terrestrial stations.Product placement is not likely to disappear, though.Mr. Clark said that terrestrial advertising was too expensive and that those stations didn’t reach Subway’s desired young customer base, who frequently stream episodes on their phones.Besides, the practice of product placement has already become a plot point.On the show “Because This Is My First Life,” the lead character dreams of becoming a television writer. When she lands a job in the industry, her assignment is to jam product placements into the scripts of popular Korean dramas.In Subway’s YouTube mini-drama, a young woman develops a crush on a Subway employee and regularly eats at his location to win his affection.Credit…Jean Chung for The New York TimesAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More