Chapter 188

Chapter 188. Softness Wins

Sriver Chairman Kim Gyu-bong received every projected performance indicator related to the company's recent terrestrial-TV advertisement in the United States.

The money they had poured into the campaign was no small amount, so the marketing staff had worked extremely hard.

And the actual results matched their predictions.

They had estimated sales by converting traffic to the US branch website into simple ratios for orders and purchases.

The result was that sales exploded across the board.

Phones.

Computers.

Laptops.

Even small accessories like computer mice.

The US business division was practically drowning under the flood of consumer purchases.

Normally, promotion, development, and business operations all needed to move together.

But this particular advertisement had also been a brand campaign...

While everyone was busy dealing with the sudden surge in the United States, Kim Gyu-bong invited Jung Tae-geon of ZJ Electronics to a meal.

He had already received a report explaining how the marketing team had come up with the idea of advertising in America.

"I noticed you've been investing quite heavily in hologram development lately."

"Ah, hahaha. Yes, that's right."

Kim Gyu-bong subtly tested Jung Tae-geon.

If ZJ Group's main pillar was ZJ Trading, Sriver's strongest field was electronics.

In semiconductor technology alone, ignoring the overall size of the conglomerates, Sriver was significantly ahead.

That was why Kim Gyu-bong had always watched ZJ Electronics but had never considered them a truly threatening competitor.

Then one day, news suddenly came out that ZJ had begun pouring enormous amounts of money into hologram development.

"We're just picking up a few products and research areas Sriver doesn't bother with and making some pocket change from them. Holograms too, well, where would we even use them right now? We're just experimenting with a few things in case they become useful someday. Hahaha."

Jung Tae-geon, young enough to be Kim Gyu-bong's son, smiled pleasantly.

A young tiger hiding its fangs was always the most dangerous kind.

Sriver was enjoying massive benefits from the advertisement that aired after the Super Bowl.

But the one receiving the real windfall was Jung Tae-geon.

By having holograms of Michael Jason and Kerins appear at the Halftime Show, he had attracted investment worth around ten million dollars.

"I'm old now, and my imagination isn't what it used to be. My instincts are dull too... I can understand investing in holograms if you're thinking about making three-dimensional smartphones decades from now. But how did you come up with the idea of promoting holograms at the Halftime Show?"

Kim Gyu-bong disguised the question as praise.

Jung Tae-geon didn't answer directly.

"You're one to talk, Chairman Kim. How did you know to place an advertisement in that exact time slot? Almost as if you'd predicted the Ali Zahed incident would happen right then."

"That was because that bastard Do Jun-hyeok..."

Oops.

He'd let something slip.

There was a hidden contributor to this campaign whom the marketing department had praised until their mouths went dry.

That person was none other than CEO Do Jun-hyeok.

Kim Gyu-bong had planned to watch him carefully and bring him into his own fold if he proved useful.

He couldn't afford to let a competitor steal him.

Kim Gyu-bong also had good instincts for market movement, so he already knew that Do Jun-hyeok was close to Chairman Jung Jun.

Still, Do Jun-hyeok didn't appear particularly interested in the electronics business.

Maybe, at least in this market, Kim Gyu-bong could secure Do Jun-hyeok before the Jung family did.

"You mean CEO Do Jun-hyeok?"

"Hahaha... Yes, that's right. One of the girls from his agency was selected as our advertising model this time, wasn't she? So we shared some strategy and... that's how it happened."

He had already mentioned Do Jun-hyeok's name.

There was no avoiding it now.

Kim Gyu-bong tried to leave it at that.

But Jung Tae-geon had already realized that Do Jun-hyeok had pulled off another major move.

He'd heard from Jung Tae-jin about Do Jun-hyeok's strange foresight.

And he had already found it suspicious that Youngchae suddenly appeared in a Sriver advertisement broadcast in America.

The Super Bowl advertisement had nothing to do with Choi Gyu-sik, after all.

The aggressive investment strategy for hologram technology had also been carried out according to Do Jun-hyeok's suggestion.

And now Kim Gyu-bong had benefited from him too.

"That's interesting. We sent our hologram technology to the Halftime Show because of a suggestion from CEO Do Jun-hyeok too. His instincts are remarkably sharp."

"Oh, really?"

Kim Gyu-bong looked genuinely surprised.

In any case, the fact that Do Jun-hyeok had been involved in everything from the WF Media and ZJ technical partnership to the Kim Gwang-yeon hologram and now the Halftime Show was already widely known among fans.

Kim Gyu-bong might not know yet, but he could hear about it from Sriver's marketing departments at any time.

If he was going to find out eventually, Jung Tae-geon figured it was better to tell him first.

"Do Jun-hyeok... That young man is that impressive? His company didn't seem particularly large."

"At the very least, he's not someone who does business relying only on influence."

Kim Gyu-bong fell into thought.

So it hadn't simply been confidence in hologram technology?

Then again, entertainment companies didn't develop products.

They made money by managing a few singers and relying almost entirely on marketing.

That meant the industry naturally gathered people who were exceptionally skilled at sales.

Sriver had plenty of marketing experts too.

Yet none of them had ever produced a result comparable to this Super Bowl advertisement.

And if Do Jun-hyeok had managed to win the favor of Chairman Jung Jun, that meant he was an expert even among entertainment-industry experts.

Kim Gyu-bong might not know much about celebrities.

But surely not every entertainment-company CEO possessed Do Jun-hyeok's level of foresight.

If Sriver wanted to use this opportunity to establish itself fully in the American market, they would need Do Jun-hyeok's help.

Whether Sriver could catch Aple in the United States might depend on whether they managed to secure Do Jun-hyeok.

Blue Moon's perfect Michael Jason cover at the Halftime Show.

The Sriver advertisement.

And even their speech at the UN peace conference.

All of it became known in Korea.

It felt like countless bombs had exploded at once.

Even the British prime minister personally mentioned the UN speech.

Director Choi Gyu-sik was checking online reactions one by one while taking a break from writing 〈The Manager Who Runs Through Time〉.

[Jonathan Flight: “I Want to Collaborate With Blue Moon”]

[Sriver's Youngchae Shines With Her Beauty in America Too]

[The Entire World Is Shocked and Japan Trembles Before Universe's “THIS”!]

[Blue Moon Ranks No. 1 in December 2024 Girl Group Brand Reputation]

There were too many articles to count.

Blue Moon was popular and active enough that new articles came out constantly.

But most of them mentioned Blue Moon, Universe, or the individual members.

The name Do Jun-hyeok was surprisingly hard to find.

When a drama succeeded, the director often received just as much attention as the lead actors.

People recognized the director as the person who actually created the work.

Do Jun-hyeok was essentially Blue Moon's director if you compared their career to a film.

Yet he was mentioned this little.

Choi Gyu-sik continued searching.

When he searched for Do Jun-hyeok by name, several articles about Choi himself appeared too.

There were short pieces about 〈Listen to the Sound of Blue〉 winning the advertising contest.

There were also articles with photos of him and Youngchae on set.

But Choi Gyu-sik ignored his own articles and searched only for stories about Do Jun-hyeok.

One article caught his eye.

It was about the recommendation statement Do Jun-hyeok had written when Sam Jason visited Korea.

Still, most stories were ultimately about Blue Moon succeeding.

Of course, the members were exceptional enough to achieve much of that on their own.

But without Do Jun-hyeok, they never could have climbed to their current position.

Choi Gyu-sik thought people needed to understand Do Jun-hyeok better.

All the more reason to make 〈The Manager Who Runs Through Time〉 properly.

If the drama was entertaining and became popular, then all he had to do was casually leak the fact that the protagonist had been inspired by Do Jun-hyeok.

Then people would finally understand just how hard he had struggled.

[Choi Gyu-sik's 〈The Stranger〉 Nominated for Academy Awards: Best International Feature Film, Production Design, Screenplay, and Best Picture]

[Park Chan-deok Nominated for Academy Best Short Film Director: “Thank You to My Colleagues Who Trusted and Waited for Me”]

When I thought about it, these guys were pretty incredible.

They spent an entire year throwing everything they had into creating works for an award ceremony that happened once a year.

Of course, Director Park Chan-deok had thrown his together pretty quickly.

But that had been a different kind of film.

Anyway, thanks to meeting the right directors, I'd ended up bringing two of our members to America.

We were here to do that thing where you step out of a black car, walk down the red carpet, wave once or twice in the photo zone, then go inside, sit in something that looks like a banquet hall, and clap.

There was a lot to prepare.

First, dresses.

Whenever I read articles written by awards-season reporters, they were always going on about this dress and that dress.

Personally, I thought anything cheap was fine as long as it looked nice.

But this wasn't some ceremony only a handful of people would watch.

We had to spend a little.

So we'd come to one of the most expensive formalwear boutiques in New York.

We needed to choose proper dresses.

I also had to think about how I was going to take photos.

Awards-ceremony pictures always made people's heads look gigantic, didn't they?

I planned to bring several reporters who had made names for themselves as photographers too.

We parked nearby and walked toward the shop.

"Ah, what if dresses don't suit me?"

"It's okay, unni. CEO-nim said they have a lot of different styles. If you try enough, one or two will probably work."

Youngchae and Serin were talking behind me.

We walked for a little while.

Then Youngchae suddenly moved right beside me and whispered,

"Don't turn your head. Just listen. I think someone's following us."

Someone following us?

What is this all of a sudden?

I kept walking, turned a corner, and used a convex mirror to check behind us.

The person looked tiny in the reflection, but someone really was following us.

"Could just be someone walking in the same direction."

"Absolutely not. I think he's paparazzi. He already took one photo of us earlier. I heard the shutter."

"Seriously?"

I checked again.

The man was fumbling with something in one hand near his chest.

It looked like a digital camera.

Come on.

Serin and Youngchae are celebrities.

And you're trying to get away with a digital camera?

I took Serin and Youngchae into a narrow alley.

Then I heard the paparazzo suddenly start jogging after us.

"Whoa! He's running now. Why?"

"Those people love dark alleys no matter what country they're in."

I stood right beside the corner.

The moment the paparazzo hurried around it, I grabbed his arm.

A latest-model digital camera slipped from his grasp.

I snatched it.

The paparazzo immediately became angry.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?"

"How dare you photograph our girls? I need to check this camera."

The moment I started operating it, his voice grew louder.

"You've got it wrong! I never photographed anyone!"

"Wrong? What does 'wrong' mean? Does it mean I saw correctly? My English isn't very good."

If Youngchae said he'd taken pictures, then he'd taken pictures.

Why was this guy talking so much?

I opened the camera gallery.

As expected, there were several photos obsessively focused on Serin and Youngchae.

Seeing pictures of the members made my fanboy heart flare up again.

"He actually took them pretty well. Look."

"You take better photos, CEO-nim."

I showed the pictures to Serin and Youngchae one by one.

Naturally, I skipped any awkward shots.

They were ordinary paparazzi photos, but maybe because the models were so good, the photographer looked surprisingly skilled.

"What should we do? Call the police?"

"Let's just keep the good photos and give it back. Still, it's kind of amazing that we're getting photographed by paparazzi in America now."

We discussed it in Korean.

The paparazzo's eyes began shifting nervously.

Then Youngchae noticed his expression and suggested we let him go.

Serin agreed.

If the members said to let him go, then I had to let him go.

"If he'd just asked, we would've let him take pictures."

Youngchae said it like an angel.

The paparazzo couldn't understand a word, but still gave her a servile smile.

I deleted all the ugly photos and handed the camera back.

"If you're going to keep following us, at least take good pictures."

The moment he got the camera back, he fled.

And so we arrived at the formalwear boutique.

The walls were completely covered in dresses of every possible color.

You couldn't even see what color the wallpaper was.

The interior glittered with luxury, making Serin and Youngchae gasp two or three times.

"Wow. They even charge fitting fees. Like wedding dresses."

"Whoa... You're right. I guess they wear out every time someone tries them on."

I'd expected this, so I'd brought plenty of money.

If you tried on several dresses, they would apparently waive some of the fees.

And if you actually bought one in the end, they'd waive all of them.

So we absolutely had to buy something today.

We started by looking for Youngchae's dress.

Maybe because she'd heard about the fitting fees, Youngchae inspected everything extremely carefully.

After nearly ten minutes, she finally picked one.

We asked the employee if she could try it on.

"What? Why are you taking that? Give it back."

Apparently, the employee needed to do something with the dress before fitting it, because she carried it somewhere else.

Then we heard someone shouting angrily from that direction.

When I checked, a woman had snatched the dress from the employee and was yelling at her.

"I'm sorry, but another customer was looking at that item first..."

"So did she buy it? Did she buy it?! Do you know who I am? How dare you talk back to me like that?"

She looked like she was about to hit the employee.

What should I do?

I approached and tried to calm her down.

"If you'd just asked us, we would've let you have it. There's no need to attack an employee who's only doing her job. Just take the dress."

The woman went quiet for a moment.

Then she fully ripped the dress out of the employee's hands and glared at me.

"You talk strangely. Let me have it? Who the hell are you to 'let' me have anything?"

"What?"

Youngchae couldn't stand it anymore and stepped forward.

"What's wrong with you, ajumma? He's offering to give it to you and you're still causing a scene."

"What did you say, you little...!"

The woman began cursing while poking Youngchae's forehead with her palm.

Once.

Twice.

On the second shove, Youngchae grabbed the woman's hand.

Then twisted it sharply backward.

"Kyaaaah!"