The Spring Home

In August 2017, on the reality program Wanna One Go, Kang Daniel was seen hugging a body pillow shaped like a bear and lounging around. Afterwards, his fans began to purchase the body pillow by word of mouth, and The Spring Home’s CEO thanked Kang Daniel via social media for the sudden rise in sales for his products.

In November 2017, Daniel’s contract with The Spring Home started with the official sponsorship of Mnet’s program Wanna One Go: Zero Base. The Spring Home representatives stated, “Kang Daniel appeared with one of our products on the Wanna One Go program, which received a lot of love. Kang Daniel has a friendly and sunny personality, so we felt that it matched the direction in which we wanted to take our products and signed him as a model for our brand. Since then the videos released online and photoshoots of Kang Daniel became a huge sensation, and the products in the commercials are all sold out.”^[s]

On December 15, the brand held an event for its first physical store’s opening and to celebrate Kang Daniel’s birthday. The store sold 500 limited edition Malang bears (with a mole under the right eye) on-site and another 500 online. To get these limited edition bears, fans started queuing at midnight, starting from the subway station onward. Only one bear was allowed per person for purchase. At 10:30 AM, the store opened and recorded 20 million won sales in just 10 minutes.^[s]

On December 30, The Spring Home’s CEO wrote on his old Instagram account, “I met Daniel on the day of a photoshoot. He was more shy than expected, and he had this feeling to him like he was born and embedded with a sense of kindness and sincerity. Because of the hectic situation, we couldn’t talk much. While we were waiting for the elevator, Daniel told me, ‘Today was a very happy shoot.’”

In February 2018, The Spring Home said, “Kang Daniel is being called a ‘perfectly matched model’ and ‘true model’ among consumers and has had great results,” adding, “We extended our exclusive contract with Kang until the end of 2018.”^[s]

Thanks to the immense demand from overseas fans, The Spring Home was able to open an online store in Thailand on August 2018. The website opened to accept pre-orders, but this one went down quickly due to the overwhelming number of visits. The Spring Home Thailand announced they would update their servers and reopen on the 18th.

On January 30, 2019, The Spring Home said goodbye to Daniel stating, “Thank you Kang Daniel, the true model of The Spring Home for a year and 3 months. We hope you will fly higher now. We will remember our first meeting for a long time!”