Jimin Leads October Boy Group Brand Reputation Rankings as BTS Take Four of the Top Five

Jimin holds first as BTS fill four of the top five

BTS's Jimin has kept his place at the top of the Korean Business Research Institute's monthly brand reputation rankings for individual boy group members, according to Soompi's report on the October list. His brand reputation index came in at 4,822,962, a rise of 23.49 per cent on his September figure.

The rest of the top five underlines how heavily BTS still shape the conversation around boy groups. Jungkook moved up to second place with an index of 3,454,210, up 9.13 per cent month on month, while ATEEZ's San held third on 2,977,493. Jin took fourth on 2,343,460 and V completed the top five on 1,875,290.

For readers who follow these monthly tables, the headline is familiar; the detail is what changes. A near-quarter jump for the leader, a single non-BTS act splitting the group's grip on the upper ranks, and a top five whose order has shifted since September are the substance of this month's release.

What the index actually measures

The rankings are compiled from big data on 755 boy group members, drawing on consumer participation, media coverage, communication and community awareness indexes. The collection window ran from 17 September to 17 October, which means the list is a snapshot of a single four-week stretch rather than a cumulative measure of a career.

That construction matters when reading the numbers. This is not a sales chart, a streaming tally or a measure of ticket demand. It is an attempt to quantify how much a name is being searched, discussed, shared and reacted to within a set period, weighted across those four indexes. A member can rise sharply without releasing anything if the surrounding conversation intensifies; a member can slip while a release performs well if the surrounding chatter quietens.

The institute's method also means month-to-month comparisons are the most useful way to read the list. A single month's placing says little on its own; a percentage change against the previous month, and the company a member keeps in the surrounding ranks, say considerably more.

The birthday effect behind Jimin's 23 per cent rise

Soompi reports that Jimin's highest-ranking keywords this month were “ARMY”, “October 13” and “birthday”, while his top related terms were “perfect”, “participate” and “celebrate”. His positivity-negativity analysis returned a score of 94.97 per cent positive reactions.

Those keywords are unusually legible. The date 13 October, which falls inside the collection window, is Jimin's birthday, and the terms around it point to a fandom marking the occasion in public. Fandom birthday projects — coordinated hashtags, donations, advertising, streaming drives — are a well-established feature of K-pop calendars, and they generate exactly the mix of participation, sharing and comment that this index is built to capture.

That is an interpretation of the keyword data rather than a stated cause, but the language of the release points clearly in that direction.

The 94.97 per cent positive figure is worth pausing on as well. It reflects sentiment in the material analysed during the window, not a verdict on any individual's character or work, and it sits alongside the participation index rather than replacing it. What it does suggest is that the volume of conversation about Jimin was matched by an overwhelmingly favourable tone.

Seven BTS members, seven places in the top 30

Beyond the top five, BTS's presence spreads across the list rather than concentrating at the summit. Suga placed ninth, RM twelfth and j-hope thirteenth, meaning all seven members of the group feature in the top 30 for October.

That pattern is a useful corrective to the idea that a group's brand is simply the sum of its most visible member. A seven-member spread suggests a fandom that moves across individual names as well as group activity, and an individual index that responds to solo releases, features, broadcasts and personal milestones as much as to group comebacks. It also means the group's total footprint on the list is larger than any single placing implies.

For anyone tracking how BTS's members are received individually between group projects, the internal ordering is the interesting part: who rises, who holds, and how far the gaps open up from month to month.

ATEEZ's San breaks the sequence, and his bandmates back him up

San's third place is the only non-BTS entry in the top five, and it is not an isolated data point. Wooyoung placed eighth, Seonghwa twenty-sixth and Hongjoong twenty-seventh, giving ATEEZ four names in the top 30.

For a group to place one member in the top three and three others further down is a recognisable shape in these rankings: a focal point who draws wider attention, supported by a broader base of members who register consistently. San's hold on third, unchanged from September, suggests a stable level of attention rather than a spike.

It is also worth noting what this does not tell us. Positions in this index describe conversation during a set period. They are not a measure of musical output, and they should not be read as a ranking of who contributed most to a group's year.

Veterans from BIGBANG, SHINee and TVXQ keep their footing

The list is not purely a snapshot of the current cycle. BIGBANG's G-Dragon placed sixth, with Taeyang fifteenth and Daesung twentieth — three members of a group with one of the longest histories in the industry, all still registering inside the top 20.

Elsewhere, ASTRO's Cha Eun Woo came fourteenth, SHINee's Minho seventeenth and Key twenty-third, EXO's Baekhyun nineteenth, GOT7's Park Jinyoung twenty-first, TVXQ's Yunho twenty-second and Super Junior's Kim Heechul twenty-fourth. SEVENTEEN's Woozi placed eighteenth.

Read together, those names suggest that in this particular measurement, longevity and an established fandom retain real weight. Artists with years of activity behind them continue to generate search interest and community discussion, often around solo work, broadcast appearances and other individual projects. Whether that reflects durable public curiosity or the steady output of a committed fanbase is a question the index itself cannot settle — but the consistency across several older acts is striking.

Wanna One's members still cluster in the top 30

One of the more distinctive features of October's list is how tightly the former Wanna One members group together. Kang Daniel placed seventh, Park Ji Hoon tenth, Hwang Minhyun eleventh, Kim Jae Hwan sixteenth and Ong Seong Wu thirtieth — five names inside the top 30, all from a project group whose members have long since moved on to separate careers.

That clustering is a reminder that individual brand reputation can outlast the group structure that produced it. Fandoms formed around a project group do not necessarily disperse when the group's run ends; they follow members into solo music, acting, musical theatre and television, and the index picks up that sustained attention.

It also complicates any simple narrative about generational turnover. On this month's list, a disbanded project group's alumni sit alongside fourth-generation names and second-generation veterans, each drawing on a different kind of accumulated interest.

Newer names, and the limits of a monthly table

Further down, the list makes room for acts at an earlier stage. CORTIS's Keonho placed twenty-fifth and TWS's Dohoon twenty-ninth, both appearing among names with far longer track records. SEVENTEEN's Jun came twenty-eighth.

That mix is useful context for anyone reading the rankings as a scoreboard. The index rewards volume and tone of conversation within a four-week window, which means it will always favour moments — a birthday, a release, a broadcast, a controversy — over steady, quiet output. It says nothing about the quality of a song, the strength of a discography or the size of a touring audience, and a low placing in a given month is not evidence that a career is stalling.

What it does offer is a rough map of where public and fandom attention sits at a particular moment, and how that map shifts. For October, the answer is a top five dominated by BTS, one notable exception from ATEEZ, and a top 30 that stretches from second-generation veterans to artists still building their first audiences.

The takeaway is that these monthly tables are best read as a conversation tracker with a short memory. Jimin's rise, BTS's seven-name spread and ATEEZ's four entries all describe a single month of chatter rather than a settled hierarchy. If you want to keep following how those positions move, the next release is the one that matters — and you can follow the stories behind the names with K-Beats Radio as they develop.