Aespa Fans Express Their Bewilderment Over SM Entertainment's Strange Promotion Style For The Group

Now that it has been about seven months since aespa released their last music as a group — Girls — outside of collaborations, fans are getting more and more impatient to get new music from the idols.

There has been a lot of discussion online about the group’s ongoing hiatus, but recently, a post was made about another part of aespa’s promotional style that has some fans even more confused about what SM Entertainment‘s plan for them is.

The author of the post made the realization that aespa’s comeback stages and other promotional activities in the weeks after releasing new music has been odd in the past. It seems that there is usually no music show promotion in the week after a comeback, and even when they do go on music shows, they’re infrequent and few.

For example, here’s a look at their music show promotions for “Next Level”.

The song was released on May 17, 2021, and yet for the music shows on May 20, 21, 22, and 23 (M Countdown, Music Bank, Music Core, and Inkigayo respectively), they didn’t appear on any of them. They also didn’t perform on the Music Bank show on the 28th, and finally made their first appearance on Inkigayo on the 30th.

Promotional schedule for aespa’s “Next Level” in May 2021 | *The Qoo*

In June, they only ended up appearing on two more music shows — M Countdown on the 3rd and Music Core on the 5th — and missed out on Music Bank on the 4th and Inkigayo on the 6th. And that was the entire duration of their promotions for “Next Level”.

Promotional schedule for aespa’s “Next Level” in June 2021 | *The Qoo*

There seems to have been a similar pattern for their next comeback, “Savage”. The song was released on October 5, and once again, the group didn’t appear on the following four music shows from October 7-10. They finally appeared on M Countdown on the 14th, and throughout the month, they only performed on a few other shows: Music Core on the 16th, Music Bank on the 22nd, Inkigayo on the 24th, and The Show on the 26th.

Promotional schedule for aespa’s “Savage” in October 2021 | *The Qoo*

Their most recent comeback, “Girls”, was pretty much the same as well. They released the song on July 9, and didn’t appear on a music show until M Countdown on July 14. For the entire promotional period, they only performed on three other music shows — Music Core on the 16th, Music Bank on the 18th, and Inkigayo on the 24th.

To appear on so few music shows during promotions is certainly odd, and Korean netizens have shared their opinions about SM Entertainment’s unusual promotional strategy for aespa on the post discussing the matter.

What’s going on with aespa?
We want to see aespa on music broadcasts… They don’t come out that often
What kind of strategy is that
Why are they promoting like that? It looks like they are not participating… So is the AI aespa appearing instead?
And it’s not just with music broadcasts. I don’t get what SM is trying to do
I don’t understand at all. Are they purposefully wanting us to badmouth the company?
Are they trying to maintain a mysterious image… There are a lot of posts about aespa regarding this
Wow what is this? How is this a strategy… The fans must be frustrated