Leaked debut plans for ILLIT & NewJeans restart plagiarism suspicions, BELIFT denies

As promised here’s more of the ongoing mess that’s happening, which involves further evidence that ILLIT plagiarized NewJeans, expanding on what Min Hee Jin submitted to court a month ago.

Okay, so the Hankyoreh got a tip-off that included the plans from both BELIFT LAB and ADOR for ILLIT and NewJeans. It shows that despite a three-year gap between them, that things were oddly similar.

More than just the visuals, it was reported that Min Hee Jin designed the report’s graphics and that the wording used in the plans were also similar.

Hankyoreh reported that the two reports had similar designs as if they used the same template. However, it was not a company-wide or common template, as Min Hee Jin previously stated that she had personally designed the graphics for the report herself back in May 2020 on Keynote, when she was active as HYBE’s CBO (brand officer). Hankyoreh confirmed that even if HYBE provides report and presentation templates, they are unique to each label. As ILLIT is under Belift Lab rather than ADOR, they would not have had access to the template. Min Hee Jin provided her report to Belift Lab previously upon HYBE’s instruction.
NewJeans’ report used a circle diagram to indicate the “areas of expansion in the international market,” targeting “Asia and North American standard K-Pop fandoms” through “lifestyle” and “aesthetic.”
NewJeans’ report also proposed marketing a “sense of kinship (dongjilgam)” and “sense of yearning (donggyungshim)” to differentiate NewJeans from other artists.
ILLIT similarly chose the keywords for sense of kinship and sense of yearning in Korean. They also reflected “influence on lifestyle” as a trait.

It was even reported they both referenced Emma Chamberlain as a part of their strategies.

The objectives of both groups also align around the themes of “relatability” and “admiration.” While NewJeans’ strategy emphasizes “teen influencers,” ILLIT’s focuses on “creators,” essentially a rephrased concept.
Both documents reference popular American YouTuber Emma Chamberlain and propose similar strategies involving short-form content and practical merchandise aimed at connecting with consumers’ lifestyles. 
A source in the music industry commented, “It seems the term ‘influencer’ was changed to ‘creator’ to avoid plagiarism claims, but the strategies are practically the same.”

On the other side, BELIFT LAB released a statement denying this, saying they had already finalized debut plans before seeing any of this.

Allegations that ILLIT’s debut plans were plagiarized from NewJeans are untrue. Branding plans and concepts for ILLIT were already confirmed on July 21, 2023, and it was shared internally. The report that had been provided by the tip off was received on August 28, 2023, so it cannot be said that it had an influence on ILLIT’s concept.

Following this, a fandom account called Team Bunnies, somehow (Min Hee Jin, I assume?) released further evidence of similarities between ILLIT and NewJeans during the planning stages and also questioned whether BELIFT is admitting that R U NEXT? was rigged since they apparently had concept photos of the members done before the supposedly real-time live voting of the final on September 1, 2023.

Honestly, survival shows being rigged doesn’t surprise me at all, though the fact that this may have accidentally exposed another case of it is amusing.

Anyway, like I said before, I’m always skeptical of plagiarism claims, but one of the things I do look for is evidence of planning/awareness behind the scenes, so this has made it more believable. The visuals could always be coincidence, but the wording and honestly specifically mentioning certain influencers were most convincing. BELIFT’s defense doesn’t really help them, since realistically anybody who had that sent to them before could’ve given it to them as a blueprint. What it does aim to do, IMO, is establish some kind of plausible deniability that would hold up in court. After all, while we know it looks suspicious, once you leave these plagiarism cases up to the courts, who knows what they’re going to rule.