Not yet the ‘Cherry on Top’ for P-pop

Just hours after releasing their latest single and music video, BINI made it to the top of the charts, getting the young and young at heart in the groove and captivating hearts across the world into their BINIverse.

The Nation’s Girl Group emerged in the top list of trending music videos on YouTube just two hours after dropping their latest hit “Cherry on Top.” According to their official X (former Twitter) page, the song has topped on iTunes in the Philippines and Singapore, made it to Spotify playlists across 20 countries, and garnered the attention of various international media outlets, including MTV.

The group also announced their new global feat as the girls gear up to perform in the popular K-pop festival KCON to be held on 27 July in Los Angeles, California.

As the nation’s beloved BINI girls bask in the warmth of international welcome, all this heightened fame may not even be the “cherry on top” for the group but only a prelude to a larger P-pop wave bent on taking the world over.

Such should be a cause for celebration not just for ABS-CBN Music — the record label behind BINI — but for the whole nation. Once BINI’s music breaks through global barriers, it would mark a new, exciting borderless chapter for Philippine pop. What will follow is the Philippine economy and culture enjoying huge slices from the industry’s sweet pie of success.

K-pop’s own sweet success story has shown this time and time again.

BTS, one of the most influential K-pop groups, even touted as the next generation of leaders, is estimated to be bringing in thousands of jobs and about $5 billion to the South Korean GDP. A 2019 analysis by Statista said BTS’s economic performance is most comparable to Korea Air, the country’s largest airline by fleet.

Such an economic impact has far-reaching multiplier effects on the tourism, hospitality and merchandise sectors — so far-reaching that some had voiced concerns over the economic losses the country could face when the BTS members come up for their mandatory military service.

Beyond economic gains, P-pop groups can bring Filipino culture to the fore, keeping it not just alive but thriving in different settings. The Cherry On Top music video, for one, showed member Mikha Lim taking a cherry from a halo-halo, a famous local dessert. In another scene, some girls were biting on banana cue, another popular local street snack.

Imagine what such gestures could do if more Filipino delicacies and other pieces of our culture and heritage are given a few seconds of spotlight in their videos. Who knows — what could be ahead is not just a P-pop wave but a broader Philippine cultural wave that will be all the more infectious and remarkable.

To secure their global potential, one lesson BINI and other emerging local pop groups like SB19 could learn from K-pop is its aggressive creation and protection of high-value intellectual property (IP) rights — from copyright to trademarks and patents.

In the journey of BTS, which has the most trademarks registered at the Korea IP Office than any other K-pop group, there seems to be a strong link between a vast IP portfolio and global success.

For its robust enforcement of its rights, the BTS made legal history when it won a two-year legal battle that reached the Supreme Court of Korea and prohibited others from selling “fake” BTS photos without consent.

And while copyright is the IP most commonly linked to creative industries, some strategic thinkers in the entertainment industry have also leveraged patents. The light sticks, for example, that BTS fans wave during their concerts features an underlying patented technology acquired by HYBE, the record label behind the K-pop group. The company invested in improving the technology that enables control over the sticks to create the light dance effect that moves to the beat of the group’s songs during concerts.

Speaking of fans, the group’s most active fan base called ARMY even has its own registered trademark!

With an IP strategy, local pop groups like BINI could stand to benefit from diversifying their portfolio with the confidence and security of a protected IP.

When this happens, we might be pushing the real cherry to the top.