Park Jong-cheol, Head of Kakao Entertainment Story Business Division, is delivering the opening speech. [Photo by Kakao Entertainment]
Kakao Entertainment explained its future growth plans, including the strategic restructuring of its Story Business division.
According to industry sources on the 25th, Kakao Entertainment held the 'Kakao Entertainment Story Business Day 2024 (SBD 2024)' the previous day for webtoon and web novel CP companies.
This event was organized to share Kakao Entertainment's unique new growth strategies and competitiveness, and to seek strong partnerships and business synergies with CPs. Topics shared included ▲webtoon and web novel intellectual property (IP) sourcing strategies ▲IP success plans through marketing and artificial intelligence (AI) technology ▲IP expansion through secondary creation and global advancement. This was the first official event Kakao Entertainment held targeting CP companies.
Park Jong-cheol, head of Kakao Entertainment’s Story Business division, said, "The story business has shown growth since last year, thanks to the CPs and creators working with Kakao Entertainment," adding, "We will continuously consider strategies and support plans to grow together in the future." He further stated, "While strengthening our competitiveness in the romance fantasy (Ropan) and fantasy genres, which we have done well in the past, we plan to establish new sourcing strategies to enhance the IP power of various genres and to advance platform operations through targeted marketing and AI technology."
Going forward, Kakao Entertainment will effectively change the submission methods and review processes related to web novel sourcing to focus on qualitative growth. Seo Seung-jin, Chief Manager of the Web Novel Business, said, "We are tracking user responses based on factors such as launch day, genre, and duration of works to explore diversified analysis and support plans for work success," adding, "By adopting this approach, we have achieved tangible results such as discovering works with greater revenue compared to the existing top 5 sales patterns."
Efforts will also be made to enhance genre diversity and openness. Starting from redefining the capabilities of works beyond existing success formulas, the sourcing criteria will be reestablished so that sub-genres can also become preferred genres.
In the webtoon sector, various sourcing strategies will be pursued to secure new IP materials and genres. This includes building pipelines to strengthen connections with original web novels, enhancing comic book services, and actively sourcing works through new writer programs for creative development.
Discovered IPs will be delivered to users centered around the renewed IP marketing formula and the AI technology Helix. Based on detailed user analysis results, optimal IPs will be matched to increase views and sales.
In story IP marketing, the existing operation method focused on large-scale work campaigns is shifting to user-customized campaigns tailored to segmented changes in content consumption patterns. Kakao Entertainment’s AI brand Helix has attracted attention by announcing new AI technologies following the launch of Helix Push in the second half of last year. Helix Shorts, scheduled to be unveiled in the second quarter of this year, is a technology where AI creates short videos of webtoons and web novels, placing the completed shorts on the home screen within the application to lead to viewing.
Meanwhile, strategies for expansion into global markets and secondary creation were also announced. Synergies will be created through global hub networks such as Kakao Piccoma and Tapas, as well as investments in IP.
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