Baby Shark Doo Doo is the favorite song of children around the world. This is the most viewed video on YouTube so far. Over 16 billion views. After coming on YouTube in June 2016, this song is still at the peak of popularity. Children are listening to this song every day. Children’s clothes, toys, decorations and cakes are being made in the theme of this song.
90 seconds of the clip of this song by reminiscing the day of release, the chief executive of production company Pinkfong Mr. Kim Min-seok said, ‘When the clip was released, I didn’t realize that this song was going to cause a storm. We didn’t expect it to be so different from our other content and become so popular.’
Pinkfong CEO Kim Min-seok is also very aware of how ‘catchy’ the song is. He said, ‘It’s like a K-pop song. Very fast paced, rhythmic and addictive. The melody has a sort of “chant-like” effect, which makes it easier for children to remember.’
However, the song did not become a hit soon after its initial release. It began to gain popularity when children in Southeast Asia began using its dance choreography at various events. The song went viral as videos of children and adults dancing went viral online.
Its popularity was growing so fast, Kim said, that a festive atmosphere was born in the Pinkfong office. The moment finally came, in November 2020, the Baby Shark clip took the title of YouTube’s most viewed video.
Kim said that in the years following the release of the video, almost half of the company’s total revenue came from the song. The song served as a sort of launchpad for the proliferation of new content and products.
But this path was not easy.
In 2019 Pinkfong was accused of plagiarizing the work of an American composer. However, the Supreme Court of South Korea dismissed the case. Pinkfong argued that their version was based on a folk song in the public domain.
The Baby Shark song is believed to have originated in the 1970s in the United States. This song was sung in summer camps. The song repeatedly says ‘Baby shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo’.
It not only enthralled millions of children around the world, but also turned PinkFong into a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ‘Looking back now, it was a turning point in our global journey,’ says Kim.
Pinkfong took another step forward in that journey on Tuesday. This company entered the South Korean stock market. On the first day of the journey, the share price of this company increased by more than 9 percent and the value of the company stood at more than 400 million dollars.
Kim said that their journey started in 2010 through an organization called SmartStudy. They used to create digital content suitable for children aged zero to 12 years.
The company had only three employees. Among them were CEO Kim Min-seok and the company’s chief technology officer Dongwoo Son. Kim said, ‘The office was very small. So small that we didn’t even think about getting paid.’
At one point the company grew to about 100 employees and focused on simple, learning-based games and content. And then Baby Shark was born.
From the year 2022, the company started its journey under the name Pinkfong. They were initially named after a ‘lively and curious fox’ character in a cartoon.
Currently Pinkfong has about 340 employees. Headquartered in Seoul with offices in Tokyo, Shanghai and Los Angeles.
Pinkfong’s other franchises Bibefin and Siluk are rapidly gaining popularity. However, it is important to prove that the company is not overly dependent on ‘baby sharks’, said Min Jung Kim, a lecturer in the Department of Business Administration at Korea University.
A major advantage of the institution, he said, is that children generally love to watch the same content over and over again.
Kim Min-seok insists Pinkfong can grow beyond the limits of a baby shark. Currently, baby sharks account for about one-fourth of the company’s total revenue. Bibefin, on the other hand, has already moved on. About 40 percent of the company’s total revenue now comes from it.
However, there is a mixed reaction among parents regarding such videos.
Salim Nassef, a father of two, said he appreciated Pinkfong’s work as an educational content. But his wife thinks Baby Shark is ‘too exciting for children’. Yet the song is almost impossible to avoid. Her three-year-old daughter’s birthday party is a baby shark theme.
Whether or not Pinkfong will be able to create another commercially strong character like Baby Shark is not yet clear, Kim said.
He said that the company raised about 52 million dollars on the first day in the stock market. With this money there are plans to further expand film and character based content.
The company also wants to become a ‘tech-enabled’ content creator. They want to design new projects by analyzing the viewing patterns of visitors and other data.
“Pinkfong has already achieved the kind of success that many manufacturers only dream of,” said CEO Kim.
But now the company needs to show investors that they are not just a single-song company.
