Since “Descendants of the Sun” debuted in late February on KBS 2TV in South Korea and iQiyi in China, the career of the lead actor of the 16-episode blockbuster soared high. Endorsements for brands in Korea and China came left and right that it is not surprising that a new survey named the 31-year-old actor the best model to represent South Korean brands.
Inquistr reported that results of the 2016 Consumer Behavior Survey by the Korea Broadcast Advertising Promotion Corporation (Kobaco) said that based on interviews with 5,000 people in South Korea, Song Joong-ki was their number 1 pick. The respondents were aged 13 to 64.
Beside the interviews, Kobaco also analyzed media consumption behavior and TV, newspaper and smartphone trends. After Song Joong-ki, second is singer Sul Hyun and third is Kim Yeon-ah.
However, the China ban on Hallyu affected not only Song Joong-ki but also other Korean celebrities. In the case of the “Descendants of the Sun” actor, Vivo had to stop airing Song Joong-ki’s commercial endorsing the smartphone made by the Chinese tech firm, but Vivo honored its talent fee contract and paid it in full.
Even though Song Joong-ki was replaced by a Chinese celebrity for Vivo as its endorsers, he still has a lot such as Domino’s Pizza, Top Ten clothing brand and Hite beer which is the most memorable advertisement of 2016, according to the survey. For Top Ten, the apparel firm attributed the 12 percent growth in its sales to the actor’s endorsement of its brand.
Hite, meanwhile, reported a record-high hike in the sales of its soju since the actor endorsed its brand in July. The increase was for its family-size plastic-bottled soju, according to the Korea Herald. From January to June 2016, sales of the soju was 27.1 million boxes of which 2.87 million boxes, or 10.5 percent, were the family-size soju in plastic bottles.