In the BLACKPINK’s new MV “Pink Venom”, Jennie went viral for wearing a club shirt of Manchester United
The relationship between BLACKPINK and Manchester United
Released at 1PM (KST), BLACKPINK’s new MV “Pink Venom” has surpassed 35 million YouTube views within 6 hours, and is still seeing rapid increases. Surprisingly, this time, it’s not only Kpop fans that are enjoying the new song, but also international soccer fans.
This is due to Jennie’s rap part in “Pink Venom”, where she can be seen wearing a shirt of Manchester United – the soccer club that’s ranking 20th on this season’s Premier League. The shirt turns out to be a Teamgeist design from the 2020/21 league, and was released in celebration of Adidas Teamgeist’s 15th year anniversary, since the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Many netizens have speculated that Jennie was wearing the shirt as BLACKPINK have been working with Adidas since January 2020. The whole team was also featured in the brand’s “Chang Is A Team Sport” campaign, which also included famous names like Yara Shahidi, Ninja and Pharrell Williams, and later also participated in the “Watch Us Move” campaign.
Of course, there are also chances that Jennie is actually a fan of Manchester United and so chose the shirt by herself, and soccer fans are even joking that Jennie will “save Manchester United” after the club’s constant failures.
The shirt worn by Jennie originally sold for 70 USD, but was later put on a 50% discount. However, after the release of “Pink Venom”, it has been completely sold out. Even the official site of Manchester United changed the shirt description into “Jennie’s shirt”.
On the other hand, keywords related to BLACKPINK, Jennie, and Manchester United has reached top trending in various nations. In Indonesia, for example, “Manchester United club shirt” even became the most mentioned key word.
“I can’t stop laughing at this situation”, a M.U fan said, while others even joked that “Having Jennie wear their shirt is Manchester United’s greatest accomplishment in August”. Some also questioned if Jennie is a fan of this soccer team.
The topicality of Jennie and Manchester United
Of course, the team is still falling behind this season, but their marketing strategy remains one of the best out there. Despite constantly losing matches and their standing, Manchester United is still a pretty relevant brand.
Prior to BLACKPINK, Manchester United actually went viral recently, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed his desire to purchase the team, though this later turned out to be for fun. In the same day, however, there were also reports that Sir Jim Ratcliffe – the richest British billionaire, showed interest in obtaining stocks worth 5-6 billion English pounds (6-7 billion USD) from the Glazers.
Now, coupled with Jennie wearing their shirt, it seems that the allure of Manchester United will be here to stay.
Last summer, when Thailand paid 1 billion Thai bath (around 28 million USD) to invite soccer teams Manchester United (Adidas) and Liverpool (Nike) for a match, the two sold over 1 million shirts within 4 days. It’s basically a win-win situation, despite the absence of super star Cristiano Ronaldo for personal reasons.
In their final match of this round, Manchester United will reunite with Liverpool. The former is experiencing strong support, though not for their recruitment of the new member Casmiro, but from BLACKPINK’s MV.
There’s no telling if Manchester United will be able to overcome their slump and win. However, there’s no denying the insane impact that comes from the name “Manchester United” alone.
