On November 11, news outlet Hankyeore revealed 2 reports, titled “Belift Lab’s New Girl Group Plan (ILLIT)” and “2024 Team Launching Plan (NewJeans)”, respectively. The reports, which were said to have been acquired through a tip-off, show strong similarities despite the 3-year gap between ILLIT and NewJeans’ debut.
To start with, both utilized the same template with similar designs, despite these not being in use company-wide nor as a standard. In fact, Min Hee-jin herself claimed in May 202 that she personally designed the graphics for her report when she was HYBE’s Chief Brand Officer.
This suggested that the report for ILLIT, which is managed by Belift Lab and not ADOR, should not have access to the template used by Min Hee-jin, and that NewJeans’ report may have been shared to Belift Lab.
Additionally, similar keywords can be spotted between the two reports, with NewJeans’ report using the words “sense of kinship (dongjilgam)” and “sense of yearning (donggyungshim)”, and ILLIT’s report also using these keywords.
So far, topics regarding these strong similarities have popped up on various Korean forums, drawing massive attention. Below are some comments under related topic:
- They basically just changed the background color and photos
- So basically ILLIT’s company just ripped off NewJeans…
- It’s amazing how even the line spacing was the same
- They serious have no shame to do something like this
- BigHit and Belift are truly shameless
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