On July 30, 2019, Daniel was confirmed as the advertising model for South Korean telecommunications company KT (Korea Telecom).[s] Among the people pre-ordering KT’s special edition of Galaxy Note10 5G called Aura Red, 50 would win an invitation to the launch party on August 19 where Daniel would be present.[s]
On August 9, KT released the much-anticipated television commercial with Daniel. Within 24 hours, the commercial—which many fans speculated to be inspired from the Garden of Eden—gained more than 340k views on YouTube and 235k views on Naver TV. The Naver TV video rose to #1 in Naver’s top 100 videos ranking and stayed there for more than 16 hours. On August 14, KT reported the TVC reached 2.5 million views and that Daniel was selected after analyzing his ability to attract consumers in their 20s to 30s.[s]
The interest was also reflected in the sales of the product itself, as Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G Aura Red received many pre-orders. On August 17, Samsung Electronics estimated 221,000 Galaxy Note 10 units were reserved as of August 20, which was a 16% increase from the previous Galaxy Note 9. By mobile carrier, SK Telecom increased 4% from the predecessor with 105,000 units. KT increased 45% with 68,000 units. LG Uplus increased 12% with 48,000 units. Half of KT’s Galaxy Note 10 customers were female. Considering the fact that the proportion of female users in the previous Galaxy Note series is less than 40% on average, the figure increased by more than 10%. 30% of the pre-bookers for KT’s Galaxy Note 10 chose Aura Red. In addition, the proportion of customers in their 20s increased by more than 25%.[s] The pre-book subscription event page with Daniel’s Aura Red recorded the highest number of views in the history of KT’s event pages.[s]
The TVC ranked as the most popular TV CF for the third week of August and ranked #3 for the entire month.[s] [s] Big Data News analyzed the Note 10 buzz during the pre-booking period from August 9–19. The second and third most frequent keywords were “Kang Daniel” and “Red”, indicating that KT’s marketing strategy overwhelmed other competitors.[s] On August 28, KT called the marketing strategy with Daniel a success and said Aura Red was the most popular red model since the red iPhone.[s]
Daniel further modeled for KT’s One-Pick membership. The exclusive Daniel goods box with undisclosed content was available for those who joined September 16–30.[s]
The KT Galaxy Note 10 Aura Red TVC won the 2020 MTN Broadcast Advertising Festival grand prize viewer category award. The awards ceremony took place July 15 at 4 PM (cut/full).[s]
KT partnered with KONNECT Entertainment to stream Daniel’s first anniversary ontact fanmeeting, DAN1TYST, held on July 25, 2020.[s]