Home-market success does not transfer to America on its own. The campaigns that worked ran in a specific order. Here it is, step by step, with the record behind it.
Win American television first, then Top 40 radio, then collaborations with U.S. artists, then touring at scale. Each step uses the one before it as proof. Television shows programmers that America is watching. Radio turns that attention into a national audience. Collaborations merge that audience with an American artist's fans. Touring converts all of it into tickets.
Skip a step, or run them all in the same month with nothing behind them, and the result is usually a spike and then silence.
American gatekeepers are cautious, and each one checks the others. A program director wants to see that a song is already working somewhere. A television booker wants a performance their audience will care about. An American artist's team wants a partner whose fans will show up. A promoter wants proof the seats will sell.
An artist from Asia often arrives with large numbers at home and few in the U.S. The sequence is how you build American proof, one gate at a time, so the next gate opens.
Television is the fastest way to show America, and American gatekeepers, that an artist is real here.
BTS made their U.S. television debut at the 2017 American Music Awards, the first performance there by a K-pop group. National television followed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Late Show with James Corden and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. Forbes covered the AMAs performance as the result of an extended push into the U.S. market.
Monsta X followed the same path, with Good Morning America, TODAY, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Kelly Clarkson Show.
What has to be true first: a performance-ready single, an artist who can do American press and interviews, and a team that can book and deliver in the U.S.
Radio is where an online following becomes a national hit, and it is the hardest door for an international artist. Programmers add only a few songs a week, and they rarely take a chance on an unproven act. Our guide on how US radio promotion works explains the mechanics.
BTS became the first K-pop group at U.S. Top 40 pop radio during the 2016 to 2018 campaign. Monsta X became the first K-pop group on the Radio Tour, and with BTS they are the only K-pop groups with three or more songs at U.S. Top 40 pop radio. Tiffany Young won Best Solo Breakout at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards, the first female Korean artist to win an iHeartRadio Music Award.
What has to be true first: a song that fits an American format, sung in a way programmers will play, and a campaign timed with television and press so programmers see the audience before they are asked to add.
A collaboration merges two fan bases and gives American listeners a familiar name to follow into a new artist's catalog.
The "MIC Drop" remix with Steve Aoki and Desiigner, A&R'd by Eshy Gazit, reached No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went RIAA Platinum. BTS also worked with The Chainsmokers on "Best of Me" (2017) and with Steve Aoki again on "Waste It On Me" (2018), both with A&R by Gazit. Billboard's 2017 year-end story was titled The Year Pop Went Global: What 'Despacito' and BTS Meant in 2017.
What has to be true first: enough American attention that a U.S. artist's team sees value on both sides. Collaborations pitched too early are hard to land and easy to waste.
Touring comes last because it depends on everything before it. BTS sold out U.S. arena dates on the 2017 Wings Tour. Monsta X became the first K-pop act at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in 2019 and headlined Staples Center in Los Angeles that year. Monsta X signed with Epic Records in 2019, and "All About Luv" debuted in the top five of the Billboard 200 in 2020. The Los Angeles Times covered that move to a U.S. major label.
What has to be true first: proof of demand in specific American cities, which television, radio and streaming data provide.
The same order applies to artists from Japan, India, Southeast Asia and China, adjusted for the format and the audience. Past and current clients of the team include Armaan Malik, Anuv Jain, Madhuri Dixit and Jonita from India, alongside Korean acts such as DAY6, HyunA, CRAVITY, KiiiKiii and DAYOUNG.
The angle changes by artist. The story that works in Seoul, Tokyo or Mumbai is often not the story an American editor can publish. Reframing it is part of the work, and so is picking the right song before anything is booked. Our main guide to breaking into the U.S. market covers the song and the press side in more detail.
LUSIVEX runs the American side for labels and management companies outside the U.S.: Top 40 radio, press and television, collaborations, playlisting and label conversations, as one plan. It is led by Eshy Gazit, named to Billboard's International Power Players list in 2021 and 2022, who was the U.S. managing partner for BTS from 2016 to 2018 and has managed Monsta X since 2018 and Wonho since 2020. Each result above belongs to the artist named.
In sequence: American television first, then Top 40 radio, then collaborations with U.S. artists, then touring. BTS and Monsta X followed that order, with the 2017 American Music Awards, Top 40 radio firsts, the "MIC Drop" remix with Steve Aoki and Desiigner, and U.S. arena and festival dates.
Not to start. A label deal or joint venture is easier to get once the U.S. numbers are moving. Monsta X signed with Epic Records in 2019, a deal the Los Angeles Times reported was brokered by Eshy Gazit.
Longer than one release. The campaigns above ran over years, and each step needed the one before it as proof.
Labels, agencies and management companies in Asia can start on the U.S. launch page.