[비즈한국] Tving's new social media channel, 'Bing-Teum', which opened recently, has come to a halt just three weeks after its launch. The attempt to expand user engagement through a different approach from the official account, even involving trademark filings, appears to be stalling in the wake of a massive personal information breach.
Inducing user reaction by re-processing content into memes
As Tving branches out its social media channels, it has also begun securing related brand rights. Following the launch of the new social media channel 'Bing-Teum' last month, the company recently filed trademarks for the same name to cultivate the brand. According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office, Tving filed six Korean and English trademarks for 'Bing-Teum' this month across the advertising, marketing, content transmission, and entertainment sectors.
Bing-Teum is an account Tving opened on the 11th of last month, operating under a 'sub-account' concept on Instagram. The channel's name combines the phrase 'providing a gap in a packed life' with its corporate brand name. It gathered early engagement by re-processing content such as the Tving original series 'The Legend of the Mess Sergeant', which aired simultaneously on tvN and concluded on the 16th, into short-form memes.
While the existing official channel focused on promoting content—such as release schedules for new works, trailers, and clips of key scenes—Bing-Teum prioritized user-participatory content. It uses a method of re-processing scenes or cast members from works into 'memes' or bundling various pieces of content to induce user reaction. A voting event held on the 30th of last month for 'World Potato Day', which compared characters from their works to potatoes, recorded 20,000 likes and over 230 comments.
The emergence of Bing-Teum aligns with recent shifts in social media operations within the content industry. It is an example of a platform directly engaging in the production of user-participatory content as video content is increasingly consumed through re-diffusion in short-form and meme formats. This is interpreted as an attempt by the platform itself to lead the re-processing and spread of content rather than relying solely on voluntary secondary creations by users.
Official social media channels of OTT operators have traditionally served as promotion windows for new and popular works. Currently, Tving's official Instagram account primarily posts promotional videos for new releases such as the original series 'Shaman: Mythic Tales' and 'Comedy Short League', as well as short-form content featuring edited clips of trending dramas and variety shows. Other OTT operators like Netflix Korea are adopting similar strategies.
A Tving official explained, "While the official account plays a role centered on information delivery, Bing-Teum is a channel that introduces content in a more flexible way by combining it with daily topics and trends."
The trademark filings are also interpreted as a move to cultivate such channel operations as a brand rather than a one-off event. Industry insiders believe the company has secured a scope of rights that can be widely utilized, ranging from social media channel operation to content distribution and promotion.
Brand cultivation underway, but… the aftermath of the data breach continues
However, Tving's new marketing strategy has faced unexpected variables. Since June 3rd, when Tving announced the breach of members' personal information, Bing-Teum's post uploads have also been suspended. The official account and sports channel, which had stopped operations at the same time, resumed operations on the 10th, eight days later. Conversely, as of 10:00 AM on the 25th, Bing-Teum remains stagnant with 20 posts and around 880 followers.
In essence, a long gap has occurred during the early stages when the new channel was supposed to be establishing its identity. Considering that Bing-Teum was a channel that grew based on user participation and reaction, the personal information breach appears to have had a significant impact on the channel's expansion flow. As Tving has revealed long-term operational plans, such as securing related rights, attention is also turning to its future direction.
The repercussions of the Tving personal information breach continue. The currently estimated scale of the damage is 19.53 million people, the fourth-largest in domestic history, following CoupangCPNG (approximately 37.56 million), Cyworld/Nate (approximately 35 million), and SK Telecom017670 (approximately 23.24 million). Tving recognized signs of a system anomaly on May 30th, confirmed evidence of external leakage of member information on June 2nd, and officially announced it on the 3rd, the following day.
It is reported that the leaked information includes not only names, contact numbers, emails, passwords, and refund account numbers, but also CI (Connecting Information) and DI (Duplicate Join Confirmation Information). In particular, user backlash is mounting as it was revealed that information of users who joined Tving via combined or affiliate accounts, as well as dormant members, was also included. Some users have already initiated damage compensation lawsuits.
A Tving official stated, "Bing-Teum plans to refine the channel's direction and identity more precisely based on user reactions."