For Brand Korea to Turn Soft Power into Hard Returns (a case for Coordinated Cultural Capitalism)

C-Cuite Notes: With K‑Pop Demon Hunters, Korea’s cultural prestige has never been higher, but lasting economic impact will require aligning entertainment, brands, and industry into one export strategy. The path forward lies in Coordinated Cultural Capitalism.

by The CBO editorial

August 1, 2025

A scene from Netflix’s "K-pop Demon Hunters" (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

A Global Smash and a Warning

Netflix’s K‑Pop Demon Hunters is a global smash — the platform’s most‑watched animated original of all time, with over 132 million views in just weeks. Critics hail its vibrant style, its Korean folklore, and its chart‑topping soundtrack.

The ripple effects have been immediate. Packaged foods manufacturer Nongshim’s instant ramyeon which appears in several scenes, for example, has enjoyed a surge in international sales as fans latch onto products associated with the film. But these boosts are incidental...and may not last.

And that is the crux of the issue. The film’s cultural capital is Korean; its economic capital is not. Conceived and financed by Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix, K‑Pop Demon Hunters has once again made Korean culture the star of a global moment — while most of the financial rewards flow overseas. This is more than a one‑off. It is a warning that unless Korea develops the mechanisms to convert cultural prestige into industrial power, it risks staying “cool” but economically peripheral.

K‑Pop Demon Hunters is the case study in why Korea must shift from celebrating soft power to building Coordinated Cultural Capitalism — a system that makes cultural waves part of the hard economic growth engine.

The Postwar U.S. Playbook

In post‑WWII America, Hollywood films and American music were never just cultural artifacts. They were platforms for consumer capitalism.

Coca‑Cola, Levi’s, General Motors, Marlboro, and MTV did not merely exist alongside pop culture — they moved in lockstep. Elvis Presley sold Cadillacs and denim; Back to the Future moved Nikes and Pepsi.

This alignment was not centrally planned. The U.S. government did not convene Hollywood, Coca‑Cola, and Ford to design a global export plan. The “coordination” was organic — an outcome of postwar economic dominance, the Marshall Plan’s export of U.S. goods alongside culture, Hollywood’s global entertainment reach, and advertising networks that monetized cultural products through brand tie‑ins. In effect, America created the model — what THE CBO has termed Coordinated Cultural Capitalism — structurally, if not deliberately.

Other nations have not been as successful at converting cultural moments into lasting economic power. The British Invasion of the 1960s brought The Beatles and later Britpop to global dominance, but without coordinated industrial exports, the wave was largely cultural prestige. Hong Kong’s noir cinema of the 1980s reshaped film aesthetics worldwide, yet without connected consumer industries, its influence faded. Soft power without hard economic capture tends to peak — and then recede.

Where Korea Is Falling Short

Korea’s cultural exports — K‑Pop Demon Hunters, BTS, Squid Game, Parasite — have positioned it as a global cultural leader. But unlike postwar America, Korea cannot rely on structural economic dominance to create organic alignment between culture and industry. Coordination must be intentional.

Today, too much of Korea’s cultural policy focuses on promotion rather than integration. Government support often emphasizes festival presence, streaming deals, or tourism marketing in isolation. Korea has been content to ride waves of cultural popularity, but without mechanisms to turn those waves into synchronized exports of goods, services, and technology, the commercial upside remains thin.

What Coordinated Cultural Capitalism Could Deliver to Brand Korea

The potential is enormous. Disney’s Frozen offers a benchmark. Beyond its $1.3 billion box office, the franchise has generated over $5 billion in merchandise, plus continuing value from live shows, theme parks, and licensed products. This is Coordinated Cultural Capitalism in action: storytelling as the launchpad for a multi‑industry revenue ecosystem.

Korea has glimpsed this dynamic. Squid Game fueled measurable tourism spikes in Seoul. Parasite’s Oscar win created a halo effect for Korean cuisine and luxury fashion. But these were reactive gains, not the result of planned, cross‑industry campaigns.

If K‑Pop Demon Hunters had been a Korean‑owned IP supported by synchronized rollouts from beauty, food, tech, tourism, and merchandise partners, its total economic impact could have reached several billion dollars in combined exports, tourism inflows, and product sales.

How Korea Can Make It Happen

Korea cannot count on organic coordination. It must build it.

That requires:

• A Cultural‑Industrial Council to bring together entertainment studios, major consumer brands, tech companies, and tourism boards to synchronize global campaigns.

• IP Sovereignty Initiatives to fund Korean‑owned franchises in animation, gaming, and streaming content — ensuring economic value remains in Korea.

• Cross‑Sector Export Strategies pairing major cultural releases with beauty, food, electronics, and tourism rollouts, turning content launches into national economic events.

• Brand Integration Labs to embed Korean brands into narratives not as product placements, but as cultural signifiers tied to story worlds.

This is not about celebrating Korea’s soft power. It is about converting that soft power into hard economic power.

Takeaway for Our Era

In the twentieth century, the U.S. built a global world of aspirational consumerism around Hollywood, Coca‑Cola, and Ford. In the twenty‑first, Korea has the opportunity to build its own version — rooted in Hallyu, K‑pop, fashion, beauty, gaming, electronics, and AI‑driven fandoms operating in deliberate unison. K‑Pop Demon Hunters demonstrates that the appetite for Korean culture is immense. The challenge is ensuring that this demand is matched by a coordinated strategy that strengthens Korea's industrial value creation. Without that, the nation risks remaining cool but not central to the world’s economy.

The future of Brand Korea lies not just in cultural expression, but in strategic economic cultural power — and that will require policy thinking around Coordinated Cultural Capitalism.

Brand Korea’s big cultural wave will only translate into lasting economic power if it moves beyond riding cool moments and begins orchestrating them into Coordinated Cultural Capitalism — owning the IP, aligning industries, and exporting a distinctive, era‑shaping lifestyle to the world.

Hallyu can be Korea’s Hollywood moment — if industry shows up.