in may 2011, in a hallyu business seminar, which was held at stanford university, lee soo-man talked about strategies for "create a new boyband where they will be divided in two subgroups and the promotion of the same song simultaneously in south korea and china, that is, with one interpretation of the language korean or mandarin." after several changes, in december 2011, the group decided to be identified as exo taken from exoplanetin december 2011, the group decided to be identified as exo taken from exoplanet. they are divided into two sub-groups, exo-k ('k' of korean) to korea in the south and exo-m ('m' for mandarin) to china. his first appearance on television was on december 29, 2011 during the sbs's gayo daejun.