Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek—A scrappy underdog turns Seoul’s ad world into a battleground for love, ethics, and big ideas
Introduction
I hit play expecting frothy office hijinks—and instead felt my chest tighten the first time a sketchbook stood up to a skyscraper. Have you ever chased a dream that made your palms sweat and your heart go oddly calm at the same time? That’s Lee Tae‑baek: no pedigree, no shortcuts, just a spine made of grit and an eye that sees people before products. I found myself leaning forward as pitches became moral choices, and late‑night ramen turned into found family. And somewhere between rivals-turned-confessors and clients who needed more than slogans, I realized this drama isn’t only about ads—it’s about the price of becoming who you say you are, and the grace of being loved while you try.
Overview
Title: Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek (광고천재 이태백)
Year: 2013
Genre: Workplace drama, Romance
Main Cast: Jin Goo, Park Ha‑sun, Jo Hyun‑jae, Han Chae‑young
Episodes: 16
Runtime: ~60–65 minutes per episode
Streaming Platform: Currently unavailable on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Viki in the U.S.; previously streamed on Viki (until July 2022).
Overall Story
Lee Tae‑baek arrives in Seoul with nothing but talent, calloused hands, and a stubborn belief that advertising should warm people before it sells to them. He hustles at a billboard company, wearing sandwich boards and hanging vinyl at dawn, while sketching ideas on the backs of receipts. At the city’s top firm, Geumsan Advertising, Addie Kang—an elite creative returning from the U.S.—slides into a corner office and a culture that prizes polished decks over street truth. Their worlds brush when Tae‑baek literally runs into copywriting intern Baek Ji‑yoon, who is trying to keep her smile intact under a boss who expects polish from a paycheck she barely earns. I loved how the show frames status: one man clings to ladders, another to ledgers, and a woman learns the courage to own her pen. The opening hours tie the trio together in small collisions that feel like fate cutting rough drafts.
When a public-service assignment about homelessness lands on the table, Tae‑baek decides that research shouldn’t just be Google; it should be footprints. He sleeps rough, interviews elders, and watches a winter night erase the distance between “target audience” and neighbor. The ad he crafts looks almost empty—paper like a blanket, a single line asking viewers to give warmth—and for once, silence becomes the loudest copy in the room. That minimalist compassion rattles the industry and makes Addie glance twice at the upstart he dismissed as noise. Ji‑yoon watches Tae‑baek’s process with a mixture of admiration and concern; have you ever been proud of someone and terrified for them at the same time? In those moments, the show convinces you that creativity without empathy is just noise turned up.
Mentorship arrives in work boots: Ma Jin‑ga, a sign‑shop owner with a soft heart and a hard head for budgets. He spots Tae‑baek’s spark and offers him a desk, a lifeline, and the kind of feedback that feels like family: firm, funny, and fiercely loyal. Together with a few scrappy hires (including a delightfully chaotic secretary), they form a boutique rival—GRC—that begins poaching small contracts through sincerity and stamina. Watching them cobble together pitches felt like seeing “project management software” in human form: whiteboards, noodle cups, and a living, breathing timeline powered by trust. Meanwhile, Geumsan’s executive corridors shine like a luxury catalog, but pressure fractures show through Addie’s cool. The series keeps cutting between how giant firms sell aspiration and how tiny teams sell truth—and how both can break you.
Romance brews on two fronts and in very different flavors. Tae‑baek’s feelings for Ji‑yoon surface in eruptions—confessions blurted in doorways, apologies that land as promises—while Addie’s interest in Ji‑yoon is curated, as immaculate as his suits. Ji‑yoon tries to draw boundaries around her heart so her career can breathe, only to find that love—like a brilliant tagline—sticks where it shouldn’t. The triangle doesn’t just complicate a few dinners; it bleeds into client wars, staffing decisions, and who gets to stand in the spotlight when the music stops. Have you ever watched someone you love choose the safer option and still wanted them to be happy? I found myself rooting for courage, not any particular ring.
Then the floor drops: Ji‑yoon is the hidden daughter of a powerful chaebol, the BK Group—yes, the same conglomerate that once bulldozed Tae‑baek’s childhood. The reveal detonates quietly but completely, because the wound isn’t just economic; it’s identity-level grief. Ji‑yoon begs for time, and Tae‑baek—usually all forward motion—learns patience as an act of love. Around them, boardrooms sniff an opportunity: pull the prodigy into BK’s orbit, leverage bloodlines, reframe loyalty as a contract clause. The show captures how “CRM software” and contact lists can’t measure the trust that turns a team into a home. Watching Tae‑baek balance pride with tenderness here felt like seeing a man grow a second heart.
Corporate chess escalates. Addie and Go Ah‑ri—Tae‑baek’s ex who reinvented herself to climb—pair up on a flashy pitch meant to crush the upstarts and impress both Geumsan and BK. Ah‑ri’s ruthlessness isn’t cartoon villainy; it’s trauma wearing couture, and the drama gives her room to ache. Meanwhile, GRC’s “we start with people” approach keeps landing punches bigger than its budget, culminating in a clever factory‑floor immersion that turns workers into co‑authors of the brief. I loved how the series shows branding strategy as a social contract: ads don’t just tell us what to buy; they tell us who we are together. And in conference rooms where numbers rule, you feel the cost of centering humanity anyway.
As GRC matures into Giants Ad Company, their grand opening feels like a neighborhood block party staged inside a dream. Old clients bring flowers; competitors send spies; Ji‑yoon shakes as she wonders whether she belongs with the family she chose or the one that claims her. President Baek arrives like winter, and every smile in the room tightens one degree. I kept thinking of how teams really run—not on software or slogans, but on small daily mercies—and how quickly power can freeze them. The “giants” in the title turn out to be choices, not companies; sometimes the bravest thing is to hold the door open for someone who might not walk back through it.
The love story fractures under pressure. After a blunt, beautiful confession from Tae‑baek, Ji‑yoon hesitates—and when family illness yanks her into BK’s orbit, hesitation hardens into a heartbreaking decision. She agrees to return to BK and even considers Addie’s carefully arranged future, trying to pay a debt that love never asked her to pay. Tae‑baek doesn’t stage a grand interception; he lets her go, and the quiet of that choice hurt more than any shouted breakup. Have you ever loved someone enough to step back so they could step forward—even into the wrong room? The drama lets the separation breathe, and in that ache, both characters ripen.
Professionally, Tae‑baek hits his ceiling—and then knocks out another floor. Geumsan politics shove him aside; BK’s pressure boxes him out; a sabotage attempt nearly kills a shoot he bled for. Watching him kneel to save a job and then stand taller because of it became one of the show’s best pictures of humility fueled by purpose. Giants Ad rallies around him, not out of pity but because his stubborn hope is their working capital. It’s the kind of arc anyone who’s ever pitched a bold “digital marketing strategy” to a skeptical room will recognize: rejection, revision, and the one person who says “try again—harder.”
In the final stretch, truths finish the work that lies began. Ah‑ri confesses the cost of her climb and finds a different kind of power in vulnerability. Addie learns the difference between leading with fear and leading with faith, especially in the way he lets go of what he cannot earn. Ji‑yoon redraws her borders: daughter, professional, lover—and decides that legacy should be stewarded, not obeyed at all costs. And Tae‑baek, with a team that believes in messages more than margins, lands a campaign that proves sincerity can compete—and win—at scale. The ending doesn’t make everyone rich; it makes them honest, which is rarer.
The last frames are quiet: faces that once wore armor now wear relief, and promises finally sound like plans. In a city that can turn hearts into hashtags, this drama dares to say the softest thing: that work worth doing will ask for all of you, and the people worth loving will give you back even more. Have you ever exhaled and realized you weren’t holding your breath for the win, but for the person next to you? Ad Genius Lee Tae‑baek doesn’t sell fairy tales; it sells courage, one hard choice at a time. And if you’ve ever wished entertainment would leave you a little braver than it found you, this is your next watch.
Highlight Moments
Episode 1 A near‑collision on a busy street connects Tae‑baek, a billboard grunt with a sketchbook, to Ji‑yoon, a flustered intern—while Addie Kang lands at Geumsan, cool as a headline. The pilot sets the class divide with tactile detail: street grit versus glass towers. It also gives us our first taste of Tae‑baek’s pitch style—messy, earnest, relentlessly human. You feel the show’s thesis forming: people before products. And you can sense a triangle taking shape the second eyes linger a beat too long.
Episode 4 Tae‑baek lives as a homeless man to write a PSA that feels like a hand extended, not a sermon. The creative choice—a nearly blank “paper‑as‑blanket” ad—stuns the room and nudges donors to act, not just feel. It’s art direction as empathy engine, and it catches Geumsan off guard. Ji‑yoon’s pride in him is impossible to hide, edging their banter toward intimacy. This is the hour the underdog becomes a contender.
Episode 5 GRC enters a manufacturing client from the factory floor, shadowing workers and turning interviews into insights. The montage plays like a crash course in branding strategy: observe, translate, test, repeat. Ma Jin‑ga’s mentorship deepens; he pushes Tae‑baek to be brave and rigorous at the same time. Addie and Ah‑ri sharpen their counter‑pitch, underestimating the power of sincerity. If you’ve ever built a deck in project management software at 2 a.m., you’ll taste the coffee in this one.
Episode 9 Jealousy tips Tae‑baek into an impulsive confession outside Ji‑yoon’s home—raw, boyish, beautifully unstrategic. She can’t accept…not yet. The scene hurts because it’s honest about timing: love is not a calendar invite. Addie, watching from his curated distance, realizes the “amateur” rival has something he can’t design—heat. The triangle stops being theoretical and starts steering careers.
Episode 11 At Giants Ad’s opening, President Baek reveals Ji‑yoon’s identity and demands she return to BK, detonating loyalties in public. The found family that lifted her is suddenly asked to sacrifice her—and does, because that’s what love looks like under pressure. Tae‑baek promises to wait, choosing patience over pride. Ah‑ri’s mask slips, and for the first time we glimpse the cost of her reinvention. The party lights feel colder as everyone recalculates.
Episode 15 Ji‑yoon’s father collapses; illness reframes every “someday.” In the hospital corridor, she chooses duty over desire, promising to rejoin BK and plan a future that feels like someone else’s life. Tae‑baek lets her go without theatrics, because sometimes love is quiet. Addie stands nearby, finally aware that winning a person isn’t the same as winning a pitch. The hour aches in the bravest way.
Memorable Lines
“I’ll wait. If you want me to wait, I’ll just have to wait.” – Lee Tae‑baek, Episode 11 Said when Ji‑yoon’s family secret explodes their fragile calm, this promise reframes love as endurance, not conquest. It’s a turning point for a hot‑blooded hero who learns to hold steady instead of charging ahead. Psychologically, it signals respect for Ji‑yoon’s autonomy while affirming his own constancy. In plot terms, it buys the couple time without reducing either to a martyr.
“From today, I’m not going to be friends with Baek Ji‑yoon. Let’s be something other than friends.” – Lee Tae‑baek, Episode 9 Blurted in a doorway, it’s both tender and messy—exactly who Tae‑baek is. The line crashes through denials and gives Ji‑yoon a choice rather than a riddle. Emotionally, it exposes his fear of being sidelined by smoother rivals. And narratively, it pulls the triangle out of subtext and into daylight.
“Paper with folds fly higher.” – Lee Tae‑baek Tossed at a rival, it’s a metaphor for resilience: creases become lift. Thematically, the drama keeps returning to this idea—flaws as aerodynamics for souls under pressure. It also mirrors the show’s production ethic: simple images doing heavy emotional work. The line becomes a quiet anthem for underdogs clawing their way up.
“Tonight someone will use this paper as a blanket; please provide a warm home to these people in need.” – Giants Ad PSA Minimal copy, maximum humanity. It’s the moment the series proves that advertising can be both commercially smart and morally awake. For Ji‑yoon, it’s why she believes in Tae‑baek; for Addie, it’s the first tremor of respect. The campaign turns compassion into a measurable outcome—and a mirror for viewers.
“Because of this, we will be able to fly higher.” – Lee Tae‑baek Spoken after a professional setback, it reframes failure as propulsion. Psychologically, it’s Tae‑baek’s coping mechanism: translate pain into fuel. For his team, the words function like a rallying cry—culture as competitive advantage. And for the story, it sets up a finale that rewards resilience over raw power.
Why It's Special
“Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek” opens like the clatter of a late-night creative meeting—coffee rings on the brief, pencil shavings on the desk, and a heart that won’t surrender. It’s a workplace romance that believes ideas can change your life, not just your job. Have you ever felt this way—exhausted yet electric—because a dream wouldn’t let you sleep? As of February 2026, availability in the United States fluctuates: it’s not currently on major U.S. streaming platforms, though it previously streamed on Rakuten Viki until July 2022; in South Korea, it’s available on wavve. Availability can change, so check your preferred services for updates.
What makes the show instantly absorbing is its respect for the grind. Directors Park Ki-ho and Lee So-yeon imbue each pitch session and client meltdown with texture—whiteboards crowd the frame, elevators feel like confessionals, and rooftops become war rooms where copy lines are born. They shoot the advertising floor as a living organism—rapid, competitive, and strangely intimate—so even a storyboard presentation crackles like a mini heist.
The writing is both comforting and quietly daring. Each episode threads a “campaign of the week” through long-burn character arcs, so victories carry emotional consequence. It isn’t just about snagging an account; it’s about who you are when the brief is vague and the deadline is real. The series is loosely inspired by the real-life work of Jeseok Yi (Jeski), whose creative activism gives the drama its conscience and its belief that persuasion can be ethical.
The chemistry among the leads turns office politics into human stakes. Jin Goo grounds the series with a scrappy sincerity that makes rejection notices feel like plot twists, not dead ends. Park Ha-sun plays resilience with a soft touch—steadfast, curious, and hungry to learn. Han Chae-young adds steel and sheen, reminding us that ambition often travels with a cost. And Jo Hyun-jae, cool to the eye and complicated at heart, becomes the gravity that pulls every pitch into higher orbit.
Tonally, it’s a deft blend—romance without syrup, office comedy without cynicism. The series finds romance in collaboration: the rush of two minds solving a problem, the quiet thrill of seeing someone else’s idea become your lifeline. Have you ever wanted a mentor, and instead found a teammate who believed in your voice? That’s the love language here.
Visually, the show delights in the language of advertising. Mock-ups flip to finished work with kinetic edits; color palettes echo brand personalities; even the city at night reads like a page of mood boards. It’s meta-fun too: the “ads within the drama” feel persuasive enough that you catch yourself nodding at imaginary campaigns like a real client.
Most of all, “Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek” believes that career is character. The series asks: when you’re measured by ideas, what do you protect—your integrity, your people, or your pride? It’s catnip for anyone who lives in brainstorms and briefings, from agency rookies to entrepreneurs fine‑tuning a content marketing strategy or exploring a digital marketing course to upskill. The show keeps whispering, “Make it mean something.”
Popularity & Reception
When it aired on KBS2 from February 4 to March 26, 2013, “Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek” posted modest domestic TV ratings, typically hovering in the mid‑3% to mid‑5% range nationwide—numbers that read like an underdog’s journey in themselves. Yet even those figures can’t capture the niche affection the drama earned among viewers who recognized its truthful textures of work, mentorship, and moral trade‑offs.
In international fan spaces, the series has aged into a low-key favorite. On AsianWiki, a fan-curated site that often captures long-tail enthusiasm, users have rated it strikingly high, signaling how word of mouth can sustain a drama well beyond initial broadcast buzz. That kind of grassroots warmth tells you the show’s emotional aftertaste is stronger than its overnight headlines.
Pre-release coverage primed expectations by spotlighting the ensemble’s comic and veteran chops. Dramabeans—beloved for its recaps and industry radar—flagged the cast line-up during the poster shoot phase, noting how the supporting players could supercharge the office humor. That early framing helped international fans approach the show as more than a simple romance; they came to watch a team at work.
During its run, outlets like KDramaStars tracked character beats and relationship turns week by week, the kind of episodic attention that keeps a global conversation alive across time zones. Those pieces served as breadcrumb trails for newcomers discovering the show years later, proving that consistent coverage can stretch a drama’s cultural half‑life.
Distribution has been a journey, too. As of February 2026, the series isn’t currently available on major U.S. platforms, though it previously streamed on Rakuten Viki until mid‑2022; it remains accessible in South Korea via wavve. That ebb and flow is typical of library titles—and it hasn’t dimmed the show’s reputation among viewers who champion grounded workplace stories.
Cast & Fun Facts
Jin Goo plays Lee Tae-baek like a man who can will an idea into existence. You see the artist’s eye—even when he’s lugging sandwich boards—mapping negative space, stealing color from streetlights, and turning setbacks into sketches. His performance anchors the drama’s emotional math: when he wins a pitch, it never feels like luck; it feels like craft finally getting a fair hearing.
Across sixteen episodes, Jin Goo also captures a quality every creative craves: teachability. He listens, he revises, he believes in the draft he hasn’t written yet. That’s why his romance arc lands—not as escapism, but as a companion piece to growth at work. He shows how love can sharpen your instincts and widen your courage.
Park Ha-sun’s Baek Ji-yoon is the show’s heartbeat. She’s an intern whose ideas don’t arrive with fanfare, but with fidelity to truth—she interviews, observes, and writes like someone in love with people. Park’s quiet alertness turns small gestures (a careful brief, a late-night rewrite) into character-defining choices.
What’s refreshing is how Park Ha-sun resists the trope of the “plucky junior” who only exists to be rescued. Ji-yoon makes the room smarter. When a concept breaks through, it’s often because she asked the question everyone else avoided. That, the series suggests, is what good copywriters do: they find the sentence the brand can live with.
Han Chae-young is luminous and ruthless as Go Ah-ri, a creative who traded one dream for another and can’t stop counting the cost. She wears success like armor—every sleek line of her wardrobe an argument for why she had to harden. Yet Han lets the cracks show; in quiet scenes, you glimpse the girl who once believed love and ambition could coexist.
There’s a side pleasure here for longtime K‑drama fans: Han Chae-young reunites with Jo Hyun-jae, her co-star from 2005’s “Only You,” layering their history into every wary glance and charged silence. It’s a reunion that gives the workplace chess game a romantic past tense—and reminds you how casting can write subtext all by itself.
Jo Hyun-jae’s Addie Kang is the room’s cold front—precise, elegant, and terrifyingly fluent in the language of winning. He’s the kind of executive who can knife an idea with one sentence. But Jo refuses to play him as a caricature; the mask slips in increments, and what peeks through is a man who once believed in the purity of a pitch before politics got in the way.
As rivalries sharpen, Jo Hyun-jae maps a conversion story in reverse—the slow unlearning of cynicism. Watching Addie recalibrate what success means becomes one of the series’ most satisfying narrative arcs, especially as he’s forced to acknowledge the creative ferocity in people he underestimated.
Behind the camera, directors Park Ki-ho and Lee So-yeon orchestrate a world where every prop earns its place: Post‑its as breadcrumbs, mood boards as confessionals, conference tables as battlegrounds. Writer Seol Joon-seok laces it with ethical provocations that echo the career of Jeseok Yi, the activist‑designer whose 2010 book (Ad Genius Lee Je‑seok) helped inspire the series. The result is an office drama that feels both entertaining and instructive—like a case study with a crush.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’re craving a drama that champions hard work, collaboration, and the fragile courage of new ideas, “Ad Genius Lee Tae-baek” is that after‑hours light left on for dreamers. It will especially resonate if you live inside briefs and sprints—marketers, founders, freelancers—or if you’re weighing an online MBA, exploring marketing automation tools, or building a content marketing strategy from scratch. As of now, streaming access in the United States is limited, so keep an eye on your go‑to platforms for updates. And when you do press play, let the show remind you that the best campaigns—and the best loves—begin with listening.
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