Starship Entertainment Sparks Backlash As Netizens Expose “Cheap” Viral Marketing Attempt

This is embarrassing.

Starship Entertainment‘s upcoming girl group KiiiKiii is already going viral for their stunning predebut photos.

| @kiiikiii.official/Instagram

Particularly, 2006-liner Subin is making waves with her beauty.

Rumored to have been an SM Entertainment trainee, netizens are now discovering the truth.

Starship Entertainment was exposed for using the fact that she was an SM trainee as a viral marketing tactic — though it ended up being a lie.

An Instagram commented on a photo of her that stated she used to be an SM trainee.

Who is… she…? This is my first time seeing her.

— OP

The comment belongs to someone in the position of the SM Entertainment artist planning and development center.

Netizens also pointed out how a fan predicted the situation: A midsize company may create a rumor that their trainee is from a larger company to generate excitement for their debut.

Wow, when people asked who the SM staff member was back then, someone on the K-pop category said it was probably a trainee from a mid-sized company about to debut.

They said the mid-sized company deliberately spread rumors to make it seem like they were an SM trainee, and now it turns out to be true.

— OP

A post compiling all of the information gained traction on a Korean forum, where netizens showed their displeasure with Starship’s attempt at “cheap” viral marketing.

• “From the Starship Produce scandal to now… wow.”
• “Why is a company of this scale acting like this…?”
• “Starship has been handling things so messily since Produce. IVE became big, so their image was fine, but now they’re doing this again.”
• “If this is true, aren’t they basically admitting they’re a mid-tier company?”
• “Why do they handle things so sloppily?”
• “They’re handling things in such a cheap way, why are they like this?”

| theqoo