Can CRAVITY Rebrand Into a Hitmaking Group?

CRAVITY has struggled to find an audience and an identity since debut. This week, their company announced a rebranding. But what if the solution is to give members more control?

For as long as I have been a fan of CRAVITY, I have always felt most connected to the group through their TikTok account. 

It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed their music. But when I think of CRAVITY, sometimes I struggle to name a signature hit song in their catalog. Sure, they’ve had some quality releases – “Love or Die” and “Groovy” are two solid comebacks of recent years. But they’ve also released several duds and their comebacks have been challenged by an evershifting sound.

Starship Entertainment, the company that created CRAVITY, is aware that this is a problem. For the past five years, the company has experimented with several concepts in an attempt to launch the team into mainstream stardom. Yet with each comeback, the question of just what CRAVITY is becomes more undefined.  

On TikTok, though, the group comes into clearer view. Here, they feel personable: less like idols and more like your favorite, tapped in creator. The group's most viral videos are usually created by Taeyong and Hyeongjun, and they’ve largely saved the group from nugudom. 

Throughout several videos, the members broke long held rules for idols. The pair were among the first idols to do the “Rocket” challenge, a spicy piece of choreography where Taeyoung spun Hyeongjun around on top of him then grinded under him as Beyonce’s line, “Let me sit this aaaassssss on ya” from her song “Rocket” played. The first time I watched it, I thought that Starship would take it down. Then it gained over three million likes.

In another viral clip, Taeyoung mimicked Jay Park’s infamously laughable choreography for “Pass the Mic”. That video aligned him with the Enhypen stans who were dunking on Park for how cheesy he looked. (The video went so viral that Park posted a selfie with Taeyoung and insisted that his feelings were not hurt. That only fanned the flames.) 

The videos only got weirder and funnier as their popularity on the app grew. In one video Hyeongjun danced to the sound of a washing machine’s cycle ending, while in another, he attached himself to a hanger in his closet and lipped the audio, “So pick me, choose me, love me” as Jungmo pushed him aside. 

Eventually, the group became a favorite for the chronically online K-Pop stans. “Is this my sign to stan CRAVITY?” people would often comment on videos. 

Yet even the most popular content only marginally increased the group’s profile. Last year they competed on “Road to Kingdom: Ace of Ace” alongside groups from much smaller companies and much less popular than them. What “Road to Kingdom” laid bare was that, similar to other struggling groups, CRAVITY lacked a clear identity.

There have been moments where a breakthrough has seemed possible: “Groovy” and “Party Rock” come to mind as singles that, in different years, could have gone farther. CRAVITY’s best bet was their last comeback “Love or Die”, a bright, slightly emo track that captured their youthful charms and excellent vocals.

When that comeback  won them their first Music Bank trophy against LE SSERAFIM, the members seemed shocked and genuinely touched.. As the leader Serim thanked the company and their fans, his voice broke and he began to cry. “Luvity,” he said to their fans through his tears, “we couldn’t have done this without you.” 

This month, Starship announced that CRAVITY would enter a “new phase” in their career. In a short statement published to their fan cafe, the company said that Serim had stepped down as the team’s leader, and that Wonjin and Heongjun will now serve as dual leaders. 

“We have reestablished the team's identity and newly refined the official logo and the meaning behind the team name,” the company added. No further details were provided. 

The new logo, released in tandem with the statement, is sleeker and more elegant than the original. The visuals, too, match this look. A new album titled “Dare to Crave” arrives in two weeks. In a teaser trailer for the album released last week, titled “Of Things That Come Too Easily”, the group’s concept is mature and edgy. Across several shots, the members ravenously eat grapes, sometimes for comedic effect, other times with a wry sensuality. 

But what remains an open question is whether CRAVITY can rebrand into a hitmaking group. 

It is a bold move to rebrand a group five years into their career. It is astonishing, though, for a company as influential as Starship to do so. This admits something K-Pop companies rarely acknowledge: That the product is not working.

What’s most puzzling about CRAVITY’s failure, though, is that Starship is a leading company in K-Pop. MONSTA X, the company’s most popular group, placed Starship on the map as a major player in the K-Pop industry. While IVE, a girl group who debuted a year after CRAVITY, defined the sound of fourth generation K-Pop with smash hit singles like “LOVE DIVE” and “ELEVEN”.  

There are signs that perhaps the company struggled with the direction of CRAVITY long before they made this pivot. In the documentary series “K-Pop Idols”, which follows the boys from their debut through the Masterpiece comeback, the group is depicted as fighting to find their place in the industry. 

When a manager is asked  in one interview sequence what makes CRAVITY “extra special”, he flatly replies, “Nothing.” The members, he explains, need to work on their dancing and singing. When he is pushed from an off-camera source to try to be more encouraging of the group, he pushes back: “I’m just being honest.”

In hindsight, this appears to be the thought process that led to CRAVITY’s rebranding. 

Where CRAVITY does stand out is on TikTok. Given the freedom to create funny, ridiculous videos the group is “extra special”. They were among the first idols to use TikTok not just as a way to promote their music but to express themselves and their sense of humor.  

I find it amusing, then, that while CRAVITY attempts a professional rebrand, their TikTok has remained unchanged. If you only followed the team on the app, you likely would barely register that a rebranding is happening. The group is still creating content that veers between humorous skits and thirst traps. When Taeyoung returned after a brief break from churning out viral content, he hopped on the “Assumptions” dance trend, looking as cool and as fine as ever. “NEVER STOP DOING TREND” the top comment begged. 

In another video, Taeyoung, Jungmo and Hyeongjun hopped on an edit of the LoveLive! “Ai♡Scream!” sound. It’s become one of my favorite videos because of how unrehearsed it appears. As Taeyoung, who starts the clip, turns the camera to Jungmo, the anime voice turns into a train horn which Jungmo grandly mimics. Taeyoung loses his composure and breaks into a full body laugh, before trying to pull it together for Hyeongjun’s part.  

It’s a stupidly funny clip that quickly gained over 159,000 likes. Compared to the much smaller liked videos of CRAVITY’s own music, perhaps the most bold move a company like Starship could make would be to give CRAVITY more creative control. They know what they’re doing.