Kakao's Namgung Hoon: "This Year is the Era of 'Fans'... An Opportunity for Korean IT Industry to Leap"

Namgung Hoon, Head of Kakao Future Initiative Center

[Asia Economy Reporter Bu Aeri] Namgung Hoon, head of Kakao Future Initiative Center, stated on the 3rd, "The wave of fans is a huge wave sweeping across the world, and within that wave, South Korea's IT industry is facing another opportunity to leap forward."

Namgung said on his Facebook that morning that 'fans' have appeared in the world of digital content, emphasizing their importance. The era that was once user-centered has shifted to being fan-centered. He said, "Their affection for products and services identifies the brand with themselves, and their spending grows larger over time."

He continued, "From a broader perspective, it is appropriate to call them 'super fans,'" and explained, "The emergence of fans and the appearance of super creators who satisfy them are the most meaningful characteristics to observe at this point."

Namgung emphasized, "In the era of fans, content and commerce based on fan sentiment are expected to become core," adding, "Digital content can be infinitely produced under the concept of UCC (user-created content), and content businesses based on B2C2C (business-to-consumer-to-consumer) transactions are expected to expand significantly."

He also mentioned the 'convergence' of content, saying, "With the keyword Metaverse (the most expanded world) appearing alongside virtual humans, the boundaries between games and entertainment have become blurred," and predicted, "They will absorb each other's strengths, grow, and be reorganized."

Namgung said, "Looking at the Metaverse from the perspective of super creators and super fans, it is simply a humanities-based definition that is not difficult," and added, "Only by understanding the feelings of fans can we understand the numerous changes happening now. The value they feel is not a realistic value but rather emphasizes 'scarcity'."

He then mentioned the importance of 'emotional value.' Namgung said, "For fans, the key is not the cost-effectiveness of basketball shoes with the same functions, but the emotional value of the basketball shoes that only I have, the ones Michael Jordan wore," emphasizing, "Emotional value is not just cost-effectiveness plus; it is proportional to the number of fans and competition, reaching tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times the actual utility value. Emotional value that starts this way gains transactional value, becomes an investment asset, and then transforms into another level of cost-effectiveness."

He added, "If we shift our perspective from users to fans, ARPPU (average revenue per paying user) should be an important business strategy not only in games but also across all digital content and commerce sectors," and stated, "The core strategy in the fan era must be ARPPU."

He also expressed the view that attention should be paid to artificial intelligence (AI) and Web3. Web3 is a concept where data is stored in a decentralized manner, and individuals can control ownership of their data.

Namgung said, "The reason we must pay attention to the fan era is that South Korea can lead the global market," emphasizing, "The entertainment industry is producing world-class results in South Korea. While we lagged behind the U.S. in the user era, in the fan era, our chances of gaining an advantage are very high."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.