Marketing East Asia

NÜTRL enters South Korea with music video campaign starring SEVENTEEN’s S.COUPS and MINGYU

by Caleb Baldo

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July 28, 2026

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South Korea– Global ready-to-drink brand NÜTRL has launched in South Korea with an original music video campaign fronted by SEVENTEEN members S.COUPS and MINGYU, created by creative agency GUT Singapore.

The campaign, titled “Smile Üp”, builds NÜTRL’s entire Korean market entry around a previously untapped detail in the brand’s own name: the umlaut (Ü), which GUT Singapore reinterpreted as a smile and turned into the brand’s defining visual signature.

The centrepiece of the launch is an original music video, “For Ü”, in which S.COUPS and MINGYU reimagine their hit single “For You”. Rather than simply endorsing the product, the two artists become part of NÜTRL’s brand universe in the video, blending product storytelling with entertainment content designed for social sharing.

“Korea is one of the most exciting and competitive ready-to-drink markets in the world, and we wanted to enter with impact. There was no better way to do that than collaborating with artists who genuinely shape the culture. Working with S.COUPS and MINGYU gave NÜTRL a level of cultural credibility and energy few launches ever get, positioning the brand right where music and culture meet,” said Alex Lambrecht, Marketing Vice President at Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The video incorporates Korean cultural references and playful visual cues alongside NÜTRL’s global brand identity, aiming to give the brand a distinctly local expression while retaining recognisability across markets.

“This launch was about much more than introducing a new drink,” said Carlos Camacho, Chief Creative Officer at GUT Singapore. “The smile hidden in NÜTRL’s own name gave us a way in, and music let us build a world people would choose to spend time in, rather than an ad they’d skip. Everything, down to turning ‘For you’ into ‘For Ü’, came from that one idea.”

The music video anchors a wider social-first campaign, supported by out-of-home advertising and on-ground activations, as NÜTRL seeks to establish itself in one of Korea’s fastest-growing and most competitive ready-to-drink categories.

GUT Singapore also led a redesign of NÜTRL’s packaging for the Korean market, working alongside GUT Design to ensure a cohesive brand identity across all touchpoints.