I want to start off by saying I’m so glad that the member’s get a lot more freedom now, and this has nothing to do with the members themselves or how the company treats them. I’m also speaking strictly as a flover, so not sure if Wendy’s fans feel the same. This is strictly about the business side of things, which I doubt the members are heavily involved in. ASND, despite being a small company, utilizes the same capitalistic tactics that HYBE/Pledis do to maximize profits with barely any effort. It’s not that they don’t deserve to make money, but the lack of effort to actually figure out how to cater to fans outside of the core fanbase in Korea and expand. They’ve always been very underrated in the west, and are often looked over but not really “nugu” bc they’re popular in Korea. The recent popularity of “Supersonic” for sure helped them gain a bit more popularity in the west as well. I’m not saying fromis should be westernized, but ASND’s bare minimum care for fans, Korean and international, is appalling and I really wish more fans would call the company out on it. EXAMPLE 1: Delaying the come back announcement until 2 weeks before the release. So many other groups that had come backs around the same time had announced them a month sometimes two months before. ASND’s decision to do this makes it hard for fans to hype it up. There were still people that had no idea fromis even still together. The song is doing really well in Korea to no one’s surprise (because the EP is a banger), but an earlier announcement would’ve helped it be more successful. EXAMPLE 2: The “cheapness” of the physical albums. The nicest part of the albums was the paper they used for the photobook and the poster and the pictures themselves. Everything else in my opinion was very disappointing. The design of the albums overall was very, for lack of a better term, ugly, especially the choice of font and color combos. The digipacks, although beautiful, are at risk of being ripped as soon as you open it and have no inclusions (pc’s and the booklet that comes with every cd doesn’t count as inclusions). The “special” zine version is the “nicest” looking one, but just comes with a giant newspaper in place of a photobook, a cheap bag, and a giant box that should’ve been designed to look like a donut box (considering they had a box of donuts in the pictures, this was a missed opportunity). The stinginess on the inclusions is the part that makes me believe that ASND, for the most part, only sees fans as wallets (as most companies do, but a lot of fans are more casual and will only buy an album if they really like it, banking on an already small fanbase being mostly whales is an oversight on their part), and wants to see what bare minimum they can get away with. The inclusions are the same as the inclusions they had under Pledis. 2/10 photocards for each of the 3 photobook ver, the special ver, and the 2 “postcard ver” (which is a poca/qr album but the flo app doesn’t work in most countries, and you only get 2 postcards), then 1/5 for each of the digis bringing the total albums photocards to 85 across 11 versions. Not to mention the 100000 fansign/fancall events they did (they are still doing some at the time of writing this despite promos being over weeks ago). This isn’t a “small company” issue, this is simply greed, and they know that although the number of hardcore fans is small, they’re there and they will buy it, BUT IT’S NOT VIABLE BECAUSE THE FANDOM IS ALREADY SMALL. There are a lot of other smaller companies with really creative album designs, packaging, and inclusions. EXAMPLE 3: Using fromm as their official/exclusive marketplace excludes a lot of fans outside of Korea. When the membership kits were announced, many flovers in Asia were surprised by how the expensive the shipping was, flovers in the west also experienced the same shock. Not everyone has the privilege of using a K-addy all the time. ASND needs to find an alternative that would help alleviate the financial pressure on international fans. A $5 pack of stickers from the pop-up costs $45 to ship, in what universe does that make sense. EXAMPLE 4: The world tour. The announcement of the world tour came as a shock to all flovers. So many flovers were so excited to finally get to see fromis_9 live. It made sense that they would hold a concert in Seoul first to kick things off, and considering their popularity, many flovers thought an Asia tour would be first. Nope. It was the US. A sudden random announcement at 10AM on July 1st, saying tickets will be on sale 2 days later. I’m not sure who in ASND thought this was a good idea. Probably because it’s a common practice that a lot of groups do, especially ones from a certain company, but that was never going to work for a group like fromis. They haven’t stepped foot in America since KCON 2019, there are tours from groups that are much more popular in America happening at the same time, as well as groups announcing their tours well in advance. No one expected fromis to come here so soon, and nobody was prepared. Pair that with the gigantic venues they booked, terrible VIP packages, and outrageous prices, you get a tour that isn’t selling well. Wonderwall not even having a 5:1 photo for a $260 VIP package but 5:10 is insane as well as a silly lottery for a polaroid. I really hope the members don’t take it to heart if it’s unsuccessful, they were set up to fail miserably. This brings me back to how ASND doesn’t actually care about international fans, if they did they would’ve toured Asia first, built hype, have fromis do some kind of US press tour, and then tour here. ASND and the promoters involved set them up to fail, and I feel bad for the members. EXAMPLE 5: The tour merch. I don’t even know where to start. I understand it’s minimalist, but this is beyond minimalist, this is lazy. The t-shirt being only one size, excludes a lot of fans korean and international. The hat having only one color way. Not to mention how boring everything else is (except the keychain). This is clearly a cash grab. This is the minimal effort for maximum profit I’m talking about. While ASND has improved the experience for international fans such as providing English, Chinese, and Japanese subs that is the bare minimum to include international fans. As I stated earlier, ASND cannot rely on the couple dozen of hardcore fans that buy everything to be sustainable. As well as turning to US fans thinking they can get some quick cash, tours are expensive, and they overestimated themselves and did no market research. The company wanting to go the commercialized route to milk fans, but also doing it in a lazy way will lead to many people being hesitant into buying things. I hope ASND continues to allow fromis the freedom they have, as well as continue to make amazing music. But business and fan engagement wise, there needs to be improvement as well as the company taking accountability for its greediness. flovers should also call out the company and have them understand that changes are needed. Yes their previous company was bad, but the tactics and care ASND has for the fans is almost as bad as how Pledis/HYBE were to flovers. Throwing bare minimum things to make money. So don’t defend them saying they’re new and small. I really hope changes and improvements are made soon. Let me know what you guys think submitted by /u/anmwinn [link] [comments]
