On January 15, monster rookie girl group NewJeans’ Minji topped the January edition of Girl Group Member Brand Reputation Rankings.
Minji scored a Brand Reputation index of 4,899,310, a brilliant increase of 14.81 percent since her December Brand Reputation index score of 4,267,230. This marked a 78.47 percent increase in her score since November 2022.
BLACKPINK’s Jennie and Minji exchanged spots for January 2023, as the former had previously ranked number one for December 2022 and the latter was at number two.
This month, however, Jennie ranked second, followed by NewJeans’ Hanni, BLACKPINK’s Jisoo was in fourth place, and finally, NewJeans’ Haerin rounded the top five list.
NewJeans’ Minji scores a whopping 89.90 percent positive reactions for Brand Reputation Rankings
The high-ranking keyphrases in Minji’s keyword analysis include the name of her latest album OMG, the pre-release track from Ditto, and the group's previous b-side track Attention.
The highest-ranking related terms that described Ditto singer Minji the best were innocent, pretty, and radiant. Her positivity-negativity analysis revealed a whopping score of 89.90 percent positive reactions.
The rankings are determined through a detailed analysis of social media coverage, audience participation, community awareness, and people’s perception of 579 girl group members of some of the most popular K-pop girl groups using important data collected from December 15, 2022, to January 15, 2023.
Bunnies (fandom name of NewJeans) were left joyous and excited as the rankings were disclosed. They took to social media to react to her big achievement. It is worth noting that all five members of the group have ranked in the top 10 of the January Brand Reputation Rankings.
BLACKPINK’s Jennie ranked second with a brand reputation index of 4,416,607. NewJeans’ Hanni secured the third spot with a brand index score of 3,933,448. BLACKPINK’s Jisoo came fourth with a brand reputation index of 3,908,118. Finally, NewJeans’ Haerin rounded the top 5 with a brand index score of 3,451,834.
Girls’ Generation’s leader Taecyeon secured the sixth spot, NewJeans’ Danielle and Hyein ranked seventh and eighth respectively, Red Velvet’s Joy was placed ninth and finally, TWICE’s Nayeon ranked tenth for the January Girl Group Member Brand Reputation Rankings.
It is also interesting that popular female idols from Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4 K-pop girl groups were included in the January Girl Group Member Brand Reputation rankings.
NewJeans’ bodyguard protects them from Sasaengs
Recently, the OMG singers' bodyguard earned praise for his quick thinking and presence of mind by protecting the girls from Sasaengs (stalkers) as they were returning from Thailand, where they attended the 37th Golden Disc Awards.
The members were traveling through the airport and an unnamed person with a camera tried to invade their personal space by clicking their photos without their permission. However, the Ditto singers’ bodyguard flickered a flashlight into their face, protecting the girls from the stalker.
The Sasaengs walked away from the girl group without creating any more ruckus at the airport.
In other news, on January 15, the talented five-member girl group took their second win for OMG on SBS’ Inkigayo with 8795 points, beating their own song Ditto and labelmate LE SSERAFIM’s Anti-Fragile.
Their pre-release track Ditto has become the quintet's first song to enter the United Kingdom's Official Singles Chart. Ditto debuted at number 95 on the aforementioned chart.
With this amazing achievement, the talented Gen 4 girl group has now become the fastest K-pop girl group in history to enter the Official Singles Chart.
It is also notable that they have achieved this within six months of their debut.