What Do Big Bang, SNSD, T-ara, Wonder Girls, and IU Have in Common?

DongA News brought up an interesting point today about some of the top idol groups. It turns out Big Bang, SNSD, IU, T-ara, and Wonder Girls have all modeled for online game brands in Korea, especially early in their careers.

Shortly after their debut in 2007, SNSD endorsed Nexen’s online game, “Maple Story.” IU started modeling for Neople’s “Dungeon & Fighter” in 2009, while Big Bang was the model for shooting game, “Sudden Attack.” T-ara endorsed RPG game, “Heva Clonia,” before joining Big Bang as the model of “Sudden Attack.” Wonder Girls were the main model for street basketball game, “Free Style.”

The report said the main reason for this is the fact that game companies and idol groups share the same target audience. Online games have “communities” on their site, and most of them are users in their teens or early 20s, so they share a lot of information in not just games, but celebrities, music, hot spots, and fashion styles. So once you become a hot topic among these groups in the “communities,” you can easily target your demographic, and achieve results you would get from “focus group interviews.”

“Since games and idol stars both share a young target audience, idol stars often use online games as a platform to promote themselves, especially early in their career when they get less TV show opportunities,” Nexen’s representative said.

Here are some of the online game videos with idol stars. Which one do you like the most?