Unexpected CF Reactions
Around evening, Yeon-woo drove himself over to the Mokhwa Building.
He parked in the nearly empty underground garage—most of the staff had already gone home for the day—and stepped into the elevator.
When he walked into the third-floor café, Representative Kim Ju-seong looked up from polishing a cup with a dry cloth and greeted him.
"Ah, Actor Ryu. Congratulations on the awards."
"Thank you. I owe it all to you, Representative."
Yeon-woo smiled as he returned the greeting. It wasn't empty courtesy. The works that had taken home prizes the day before were Sketch and White Blood. Sketch had been an independent film Kim Ju-seong had personally invested in under Yeon-woo's name, and even White Blood had been something he had backed out of his own pocket in the early stages, overriding the board's objections. Calling Kim Ju-seong's contribution enormous would not have been an overstatement.
So when Yeon-woo offered those words, Kim Ju-seong simply grinned, gave a small nod, and went back to arranging the cups.
Yeon-woo turned his gaze toward the far side of the café. The space was split left and right of the central elevator bank; temporary walls had been put up, and construction was underway inside.
"Representative, how's the company cafeteria coming along?"
"We're in the final stretch. If things go smoothly, we should be able to open as early as next week."
Yeon-woo nodded, and Kim Ju-seong continued.
"I've already decided on our head cook—a woman who used to run a film-set meal truck I've known for years. I hired her whole team. She's getting on in years and said she wanted to settle down somewhere instead of roaming from set to set, so the timing worked out perfectly."
"Oh. I was still thinking through the staffing, but a meal-truck crew never even crossed my mind."
"Come to think of it, you must have eaten her food during the Master Plan shoot, didn't you?"
Yeon-woo cast back through his memories. Kind, excellent food, meticulous about hygiene—the crew had spoken highly of her.
"Ah, so it was her. I didn't realize the two of you were acquainted."
Kim Ju-seong waved a hand lightly.
"Acquainted is a strong word. She's simply been at it so long that she was already running a meal truck back when I was still going out on sets myself. Less a deep friendship than a long-standing connection."
He gazed across at the construction for a moment, then spoke again.
"Anyway, you suddenly asking for a company cafeteria meant I had to fuss over all sorts of details for the first time in ages. Necessary work, of course, but still."
As he spoke, he shot Yeon-woo a sidelong glance. Yeon-woo only smiled back with an expression no one could possibly stay mad at. Kim Ju-seong pressed on as if determined not to be disarmed by it.
"Ah-ah, I know that innocent little smile. You're trying to gloss right over it. I've known you since you were in high school, Actor Ryu."
"That… wasn't me trying to gloss over anything. That was the face of a man asking for forgiveness in advance."
Kim Ju-seong tilted his head.
"Hm? Forgiveness?"
"There's something else I'll need you to take on, Representative. You just said the cafeteria will be finished soon."
"…"
The hand wiping the cup paused for a beat, then smoothly picked up the next one as if nothing had happened.
"I'm quite certain the letter you sent me before we founded the company said I could enjoy my retirement and offer the occasional piece of advice…"
"Well, they do say that in the age of living to a hundred, retirement is just another beginning…"
Kim Ju-seong shook his head as if he had finally been outmaneuvered, then opened his mouth.
"What is it this time?"
Yeon-woo held out a report he had roughly drafted at home beforehand.
"A report? Did you put this together yourself, Actor Ryu?"
"Yes. I kept it brief on paper, but there's a project I'd like you and Planning Team Leader Gong Min-jeong to handle together."
Kim Ju-seong skimmed the pages; his expression turned peculiar.
"Merchandise…? I know what the word means, of course, but merchandise from an actors' agency?"
"I think it'll sell. And it should pair well with the projects we have coming up."
"Hmm. Gong Min-jeong from Planning—she's the one who wrote that report on first movers and fast followers last time, isn't she?"
Yeon-woo nodded, impressed that Kim Ju-seong remembered a report he had only glanced at.
"Saebyeol Family was her idea too. She has a knack for concepts that sit right at the sweet spot—realistic enough, idealistic enough, and marketable."
Kim Ju-seong looked at him and broke into a grin.
"It's like watching a younger version of myself back when I first discovered Team Leader Yoon Mi-yeon. Ah—Executive Director Yoon Mi-yeon now, of course."
Watching Yeon-woo take the lead and grow Saebyeol felt, to him, like seeing his own younger self reflected—the man who had built LN Entertainment from nothing.
"Well. Looks like I'll be working like an ox in my twilight years. All right. Let's give it a try."
Meanwhile, when the TV commercial shot by the White Blood expedition cast dropped, the response was formidable.
Director Jeong Yo-han—who had handled CG for White Blood—took the megaphone, and the entire principal cast appeared in a commercial of staggering quality. In some ways the polish made it feel less like an ad and more like a trailer for a spin-off series continuing straight out of the drama.
Even so, no matter how high the production values, the people of South Korea—a content powerhouse already thoroughly inoculated against high-quality video—were not about to lose their minds over a mere commercial. And domestically, the promotional effect of a CF was almost beside the point; the new smartphone was already selling so fast they couldn't keep it in stock.
EVP No Gang-seon was the chief operating officer of SL Electronics' Mobile Division, overseeing everything from development to sales for the company's core smartphone business. While listening to a briefing on the special edition of the newly released Universe phone, he thought to himself:
Still, it would be a stretch to credit the domestic frenzy entirely to the White Blood marketing. Koreans have always been early adopters—new product launches routinely set off stampedes…
Judging whether Yeon-woo and the expedition cast's participation had meaningfully moved domestic numbers was ambiguous at best.
The other side of the planet, however, was a different story.
The explosion had come not at home, but overseas.
"After Korea, the market that completely sold out its initial allocation is Brazil. The rest of South America is moving just as fast—we project the entire first production run will be gone by the end of this week."
No Gang-seon listened to the Strategic Marketing team member presenting at the front of the room and sank into thought.
Just as the briefer had said, South America had been the first place the reaction detonated.
Most global brands shot different commercials for different countries and tailored their marketing to local tastes. SL Electronics, being a global brand itself, normally did the same. This time, however, they had rolled out simultaneous worldwide marketing. Because White Blood was a globally successful series, using the same version of the commercial across most major markets had posed no problem.
"South America is still a surprise no matter how I look at it. How did we perform there with previous releases?"
At No Gang-seon's question, the staffer immediately put up the prepared data. Until now, there had never been a single instance in which the initial allocation sold out in South America before the second shipment even arrived.
"Hmm. So the only variable that changed this time is the marketing…"
"Correct. The prevailing analysis is that the commercial we shot this time was decisive. We'll brief you on the related findings next."
No Gang-seon turned his attention back to the Strategic Marketing presentation.
The culture of a large nation naturally exerts influence on its neighbors. In Asia, that was the role Korea or Japan played toward Southeast Asia. In the same way, Brazil—South America's largest country—shaped all of Latin America. And the culture that shaped Brazilian media was, unsurprisingly, that of its largest trading partner, the United States. That was precisely why SL Electronics had never made serious headway in South America, always losing ground to American competitors.
This time was different.
Brazil had one peculiarity: whatever else might be true, its advertising culture had been heavily influenced by Japan. And that, the analysis ran, was exactly what had given the White Blood expedition commercial its stage to shine.
"Japanese commercials have a lot of distinctive traits. They use extremely exaggerated visuals to seize the viewer's eye, or they bring in animated characters."
Or they hammer the message home with over-the-top choreography set to a brainwashing CM song, looping the content until it sticks. The Japanese commercials the marketing team played as examples felt unmistakably Japanese the instant they started—even without a single character of Japanese text on screen.
The executives, however, only tilted their heads when the team suddenly started showing Japanese ads.
"And what does any of that have to do with our results this time?"
"We'll show you directly."
The marketing team began playing the TV commercials actually airing in South America. Because Japanese ad agencies had entered Brazil early, the local mainstream had settled into the same style—light comedy or addictive CM-song-driven spots that lodged in viewers' heads. The executives were starting to look puzzled again at the string of Brazilian corporate ads—clearly recorded off actual local television—when SL Electronics' commercial finally came on.
It felt nothing like the Brazilian spots that had preceded it.
For one thing, until well past the midpoint you had no idea what product was even being advertised. The expedition cast members, shifting frame by frame in slow motion from ordinary daily life into fantasy, looked as if they were promoting a beautifully made film or a game. It was a concept that could have tipped into cheap gimmickry with the slightest misstep, yet the actors' performances and CG that ranked among Hollywood's absolute best seized plausibility by the hair and dragged it along by force.
And the crowning touch, of course, was Actor Ryu Yeon-woo's walking scene in the latter half. Moving down a near-future corridor at a deliberate pace, his expression shifting continuously as light and shadow crossed his face—quiet, powerful, charismatic enough to lock every eye in place.
"Mmm…"
No Gang-seon and the other executives understood at once why the response in South America had been so exceptionally strong.
When you write music and want to give a particular passage weight, you don't pile on faster beats or denser harmony—you give it mute. Intentional silence. In the same way, amid a sea of light, breezy commercials, the Universe smartphone ad had dropped in with a heavy breath, like a sudden silence cutting through a rapid beat, and that was precisely what pulled every viewer's gaze.
Listening to Strategic Marketing's analysis, No Gang-seon found himself nodding. He had seen the finished product himself.
"A commercial alone producing this kind of effect…?"
"Of course we believe it was a compound result—the lead actor's global popularity from multiple hit works, Latin America's currently favorable response to the Korean Wave, and the customer satisfaction SL Electronics has steadily built over the years."
No Gang-seon listened, then sat tapping his pen against the desk for a long while before he spoke.
"Saebyeol Media, was it? Ask them whether additional marketing activity is contractually possible on this project. No—scratch that. Inquire whether they can take the commercial for the next series launch as well, and if so, lock in a contract in advance."
"Sir? The next series is still at least a year out. Ah—yes, understood. We'll proceed that way."
The staffer who had started to question it caught the steel in No Gang-seon's eyes and immediately bowed his head.
No Gang-seon shifted his gaze to the young actor on the screen.
Hmm. So that's why the rumor is going around that Chairman Seo Tae-gwang of Ihan Group personally stepped in to designate that particular actor as the CF model. I thought it was odd—he's never cared about that sort of thing. If we can get out in front of this, we'd better lock him down early ourselves.