Theirs is the inevitable love story—Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin—that became a communications giant’s inevitable love story with its customers.
Last February 14, Smart sprang a video surprise that sent fans of K-Drama’s hottest couple Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin in a frenzy. The casting-coup drama started with Hyun Bin’s Simple Smart Ako TVC last June, followed by Son Ye Jin’s Smart Signature, and finally, the couple together in the new Smart 5G campaign making what seemed impossible, possible.
Subscribers and fans, using the social media hashtag #InSmartWeTrust, finally got what they wanted—a joint campaign featuring the lead stars of the global K-Drama hit, Crash Landing on You, who by an incredible stroke of luck, admitted at the start of 2021 that they have really been dating.
“Here at Smart, we always have the best interest of our customers at heart. So you can just imagine how we felt when fans of Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin flooded our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with requests, begging for a joint material featuring the pair. It may have taken a while but we felt it was worth the wait as the stars aligned for us to finally launch our new campaign last Valentine’s Day,” said Jane J. Basas, Smart SVP and Head of Consumer Wireless Business.
Jane Basas: ‘The trust of our customers propelled us to fulfill their wish’
She added, “We owe this TVC to our subscribers and Crash Landing On You (CLOY) fans who rallied behind the hashtag #InSmartWeTrust, hoping that we would bring them together. Trust is not easily earned, so we value it so much. We knew that this has turned into something bigger and the trust of our customers propelled us to fulfill their wish.”
In a virtual meet with the press last Tuesday, Basas led other Smart executives in recalling the memorable two days last January when they shot the famous pair—in the middle of the snowstorm in Seoul. On January 12, the shoot began with Hyun Bin late morning way into the afternoon, when Son Ye Jin joined him. The duo had another shoot on January 22. These two days in January were for the Smart TVCs.
CLOY’s famous couple Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin together for the first time in Smart’s milestone campaign that made the impossible possible
From The Captain Has Landed to landing into each other’s arms, Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin took chemistry to whole new level in the Smart 5G TVC showing them chasing each other on the road and through different dimensions only to meet again, just as Bin asks, “Do you believe it’s possible?” Ye Jin replies, “I do!”
In an exclusive Smart video, the two shared their experience working on the project. Hyun Bin talked briefly about how they had to shoot in the middle of a snowstorm that January. “I remember it snowed a lot on the day of the shoot. Thanks to that, the shooting was fun despite the cold weather.”
Son Ye Jin recalled how unique the experience was working with the Smart team anew. “I am so happy to be with Smart for the second time. It’s a lot easier because we worked with the same team.”
She said that she’s looking forward to more campaigns with Smart. “And I am so excited to see more wonderful advertisements.”
The pair also revealed that they wanted to visit the Philippines to be with their supporters physically but would have to settle for now with the virtual connectivity.
In the video Hyun Bin spoke to his Filipino fans: “Hello. This is Hyun Bin. I have been given another chance to meet you all through Smart’s new campaign video. I hope that you’ll continue to support Smart and me. I wish you a Happy New Year. Please keep yourselves healthy and warm this year.”
Son Ye Jin echoed her partner’s message: “I may not be able to meet you all in person but I’m very happy that I can greet you through this video. Last year was a difficult year for everyone. I sincerely hope you become happier this year. I hope to see you soon. Stay healthy until then.”
Smart used the TVC as an opportunity to tap the Filipino talent for the video soundtrack and musical scoring.
‘Inevitable is also a song about being real with someone’
Today’s famous band, Ben&Ben, composed and performed Inevitable, the song playing in the background as Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin pursue each other in this romantic-sci-fi TVC.
Its lyrics have been inspired by real-life events, according to Ben&Ben members who are CLOY fans as well. The band, Smart and Sony Music Phils collaborated on the soundtrack and musical score.
In an official statement from Sony Music Phils, lead singer Paolo Benjamin said, “Inevitable is a song that tries to describe the nature of fate, and how all our actions somehow lead us to some better place that is destined for us. It’s also a song about being real with someone, and that no matter how scary that may seem at times, there is freedom in baring your truest nature with someone dear to you, even if that someone is yourself.”
Miguel Benjamin added, “The songwriting in itself presents a concept of the state that is both a surreal mystery and a peaceful certainty, so we wanted to create an aural representation of what these lyrics felt like. Our process started with a mix of acoustic guitars, which I tweaked with sitar effects as the main intro riff; kind of like a representation of the two contrasting feelings working together.”
Smart has done the seemingly impossible by putting Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin together in one project for the first time—much like Smart 5G, which has started enabling subscribers to do groundbreaking things that couldn’t have been done otherwise.
5G offers superfast data speeds….which enable users to upload and download heavy files in seconds, stream high-resolution videos seamlessly
The latest evolution in wireless communications, 5G offers superfast data speeds and fiber-like low latency, which enable users to upload and download heavy files in seconds, stream high-resolution videos seamlessly, play online games without noticeable lag, and benefit from other cutting-edge apps and services on their smartphone with fiber-like speeds.
Smart is at the forefront of the 5G revolution in the Philippines with the continued nationwide roll-out of its ultrafast 5G network, which includes strategic sites in Metro Manila, Boracay, Cavite, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, Laguna, New Clark City in Pampanga, and Rizal.
To enable more subscribers to experience 5G, Smart has teamed up with smartphone manufacturers like Huawei, Samsung, realme, and vivo in offering Smart 5G-certified devices under Smart Signature 5G Plans.
Smart’s 5G rollout complements the mobile services provider’s extensive 4G/LTE and 3G network in the country, already considered the fastest in the Philippines by third-party mobile internet analytics firms such as Ookla and Opensignal.
Ookla, the global leader in internet testing and analysis, named Smart as the country’s fastest mobile data network in the second half of 2020 after it achieved a Speed Score™ of 24.99, with average speeds of 20.08 Mbps for download, and 7.42 Mbps for upload, based on 3,915,679 user-initiated tests taken with Speedtest®.
Opensignal, an independent mobile analytics firm, noted in its November 2020 Mobile Network Experience Report for the Philippines that Smart remained ahead of the competition in terms of video experience, upload and download speed experience, 4G availability, and 4G coverage experience.
To know more about Smart 5G, visit 5g.smart and follow Smart’s official accounts on Facebook at facebook.com/SmartCommunications, and Twitter and Instagram at @LiveSmart.
