I.O.I Tops July Girl Group Brand Rankings After 10th Anniversary Comeback

I.O.I has taken first place in the July 2026 girl group brand reputation rankings, adding another marker of momentum to the group’s 10th anniversary comeback cycle. The Korea Corporate Reputation Research Institute released its July analysis on July 12, placing I.O.I at No. 1, followed by RESCENE at No. 2 and ILLIT at No. 3.

The result is notable because I.O.I’s current visibility is not built only on nostalgia. The group returned this year around its debut anniversary, and the July ranking suggests that public attention, media coverage, fan discussion, and community activity have continued beyond the first comeback announcement. For a project group whose original run was brief, the renewed response is unusually strong.

According to the institute’s release, the July rankings were based on brand big data collected from June 12 to July 12. The data set covered 53,294,296 pieces of girl group-related brand data, up 2.21 percent from the previous month’s 52,141,384. The index combines participation, media, communication, and community scores to measure how actively each brand is being consumed and discussed online.

I.O.I Leads the Top Five

I.O.I recorded a total brand reputation index of 5,552,322. The institute broke that number into a participation index of 286,076, media index of 716,445, communication index of 2,335,937, and community index of 2,213,864. Those figures point to a ranking driven less by one isolated metric and more by a broad wave of conversation around the group.

RESCENE followed in second place with a brand reputation index of 4,239,616. The institute said the group’s score rose 64.27 percent from June, a sharp jump that made the rookie group’s July position one of the month’s more eye-catching developments. ILLIT ranked third with 3,883,353, up 1.38 percent from the previous month.

BLACKPINK placed fourth with 3,822,722, while LE SSERAFIM completed the top five with 3,403,644. The wider top 30 also included IVE, aespa, TWICE, KiiiKiii, Red Velvet, fromis_9, OH MY GIRL, MEOVV, izna, WJSN, BABYMONSTER, NMIXX, Hearts2Hearts, Apink, ITZY, STAYC, MAMAMOO, FIFTY FIFTY, i-dle, tripleS, H1-KEY, Kep1er, Girls’ Generation, KATSEYE, and KISS OF LIFE.

Comeback Context Matters

Newsen, carried by Daum, connected I.O.I’s ranking to the group’s 10th anniversary activities. The report said I.O.I recently returned as a nine-member lineup, excluding Zhou Jieqiong and Kang Mina, after nine years away from group promotions. Their third mini album, I.O.I : LOOP, was released on May 19 and was described as topping music charts after release.

The same report noted that I.O.I has been appearing across variety and YouTube content, including programs such as Knowing Bros and Running Man. That matters for brand rankings because comeback visibility is rarely limited to music charts. Variety appearances, reunion narratives, performance clips, and fan discussion all feed the online activity that these indexes attempt to capture.

The institute’s keyword and link analysis also underlined that point. Director Koo Chang-hwan said high-ranking link terms for I.O.I included ideas translated as “unchanged,” “reunited,” and “proved,” while key terms included “Suddenly,” “Yang Eui-ji,” and “10th anniversary.” The positive-negative analysis gave I.O.I a positive ratio of 92.86 percent.

Brand reputation rankings should be read as one measure of public attention, not as a complete verdict on musical performance or fandom size. Still, the July result captures the particular power of I.O.I’s return: a group formed through a survival program, remembered for a compact but influential original run, and now reappearing at a moment when long-running K-pop audiences are especially responsive to reunion stories.

For RESCENE and ILLIT, the same chart offers a different kind of signal. RESCENE’s month-to-month rise shows how quickly newer groups can gain ground when media exposure and fan conversation accelerate. ILLIT’s steady third-place finish points to continuing visibility in a crowded girl group field. Together, the top three show a July landscape split between reunion power, rookie growth, and sustained fourth- and fifth-generation competition.

I.O.I’s No. 1 ranking does not guarantee that the comeback cycle will keep climbing indefinitely. But it does show that the group’s anniversary return has reached beyond a one-day headline. In July, the data suggests that fans and casual observers are still talking, clicking, sharing, and reacting, which is exactly the kind of activity a revived K-pop brand needs to stay in the conversation.