Draft:ADOR

ADOR (acronym for All Doors One Room) is a South Korean entertainment company established in November 2021 by its current CEO, Min Hee-jin, as a subsidiary of Hybe Corporation. After becoming CBO of Hybe Corporation in 2019, Min started planning to form a K-pop girl group. She subsequently decided to establish her own label to gain full control over the production process. The label's first girl group, NewJeans, debuted in July 2022 to commercial success. After the group's second successful release, Hybe sold a significant portion of its stake back to ADOR and allowed a change in the board of directors that led to ADOR gaining increased autonomy. To promote the group, the label has collaborated with one of Hybe's subsidiaries, Weverse Company, to develop a NewJeans-exclusive mobile application, Phoning, which was successfully launched in July 2022.

2019–2022: Origins and establishment
After working for 16 years at SM Entertainment, creative director Min Hee-jin left the company and became the chief brand officer (CBO) of Hybe Corporation in 2019. That year, Min started planning to debut a K-pop girl group. In November 2021, Hybe announced the establishment of the wholly-owned record label ADOR, with Min as its CEO. Initially formed as a division of one of Hybe's subsidiaries, Source Music, ADOR was subsequently acquired by Hybe through an investment of around billion, becoming the first label to be established solely by Hybe. The label's initial board of directors included as inside directors Min and two Hybe executives: chief financial officer (CFO) Lee Kyung-joon and head of corporate strategy Lee Chang-woo. Hybe supported the label through monetary investment and financial and corporate strategy consulting provided by their executives.

In January 2022, the label hosted the online ADOR Global Audition. The planned girl group, named NewJeans, debuted under ADOR in July 2022 with the release of the music video for their first single "Attention", which topped the South Korean Circle Digital Chart. That same month, one of Hybe's subsidiaries, Weverse Company, launched the mobile application Phoning, an artist-to-fan communication service developed exclusively for NewJeans in collaboration with ADOR. NewJeans' first extended play (EP), New Jeans, was released in August 2022 to commercial success; it topped the Circle Album Chart and sold over a million copies, becoming the best selling debut album by a K-pop female act in South Korea and the only debut album to achieve this since the establishment of Circle Chart in 2011. The marketing strategy implemented to promote NewJeans was considered innovative in the K-pop industry; Lee Seung-yoon, digital cultural psychologist and professor at Konkuk University Business School, analyzed the album rollout, highlighting their unconventional introduction to the public, use of transmedia storytelling in music videos, and close communication with fans through Phoning, among others. In the second half of 2022, sales reportedly totaled up to billion.

2023–present: Increased autonomy and conflict with Hybe
NewJeans' first single album, OMG, was released in January 2023. The album topped the Circle Album Chart with over a million copies sold and spawned two singles including "Ditto", the longest-running number-one song on the Circle Digital Chart and the group's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. In the first quarter of 2023, sales had reportedly increased to billion and the company had recorded a net profit of  billion. That year, Hybe sold 20% of its stake in the company; Min Hee-jin exercised her call option right and bought 18% for billion, while other officials at ADOR bought the remaining 2%. In April 2023, Lee Kyung-joon and Lee Chang-woo left the board of directors and were replaced by Min's long-time collaborators Shin Dong-hoon, vice president (VP) of ADOR, and Kim Ye-min, senior creative director at ADOR; both had previously worked with Min at SM Entertainment. Analysts noted that the move would guarantee the label more autonomy. Hybe subsequently stated that the change had been enacted "to strengthen ADOR's artist management and production capabilities". Analysts interpreted both moves as "recognition of the capabilities of CEO Min and other key officials" at ADOR from Hybe chairman Bang Si-hyuk following NewJeans' commercial success. In the first half of 2023, sales had reportedly increased to billion and ADOR recorded a net profit of  billion, becoming Hybe's sixth highest-grossing subsidiary.

From March to June 2023, ADOR hosted a series of worldwide online and offline auditions, titled 2023 ADOR Global Audition – The Real Hybe Boys, to recruit members for a future boy group; offline auditions were held in South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In May 2023, ADOR and the Korean Cultural Center in Thailand hosted the 2023 ADOR Onsite Global Audition in Thailand, open to both male and female trainees. The company also hosted the online ADOR Audition from November 2023. The company reported a revenue of billion, an operating income of  billion, and a net profit of  billion for 2023.

On April 22, 2024, Hybe called for the resignation of Min as the CEO of ADOR in the wake of an internal audit conducted amidst allegations of Min and another management official's attempts to establish ADOR as an independent entity. In response, Min issued a public statement refuting the allegations, claiming that it would be impossible for her to do so without Hybe's consent. Min claimed that she was asked to resign because of her complaint that Hybe and its subsidiary label Belift Lab had been ignoring the creative similarities between NewJeans and Illit, who debuted in March 2024 under Belift. She believed that Hybe and Belift had failed to address accusations of Illit appropriating NewJeans' image, ranging from their musical style to their fashion. Hybe's share value consequently experienced a decline of 8.03%. Accompanied by two lawyers, Min held an emergency press conference on April 25 to discuss the allegations; Min's lawyer reiterated that it would have been impossible to seize control of ADOR, since Hybe still owned 80% of the shares. ADOR's board convened on May 10 to schedule an extraordinary shareholders' meeting for May 31; the agenda will include the proposed dismissal of Min, as requested by Hybe.

Philanthropy
In December 2022, it was announced that ADOR and NewJeans would annually donate part of the profits from the group's album sales to the Snail of Love charity to fund cochlear implant surgery and speech therapy treatment for the hearing-impaired. The following year, ADOR and NewJeans joined the Snail of Love's Soul Leader club, having donated over million in total. In February 2023, ADOR and NewJeans donated million to the World Food Programme to help victims of the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria that month.

Artists

 * NewJeans

Phoning
Phoning is a mobile application developed exclusively for NewJeans by ADOR and Weverse Company. The app was launched by Weverse Company on July 25, 2022. Created as a marketing tool to promote the group, Phoning was the first app to be developed by Weverse Company for a specific artist. Users can interact with members of NewJeans through multiple features, including a live stream service, a private messaging service, a photo album, and a calendar detailing the group's upcoming schedule. The private messaging service was initially limited: NewJeans' members could send messages but users could not reply. In December 2022, the app implemented a subscription-based private messaging service, priced at per month or  per year, where users could send messages to the members. Upon release, users could also dress avatars of the members in different outfits and virtually decorate albums, but the features were discontinued following the end of promotional activities for the group's first EP. The app is designed to mimic the user interface of a mobile phone: NewJeans' members appear listed as "friends", while live streams are dubbed as "calls". Based on NewJeans' concept, the app's visual style is inspired by the design of 1990s Nokia phones and the Y2K aesthetic.

Ten days after its release, Phoning had been downloaded more than 50,000 times through Google Play. Writing for Mashable, Elizabeth de Luna appreciated its design and unique features, but lamented the app's slowness, the limited notification settings, and the inability to talk to other fans. Upon release, pop culture critic Jeong Deok-hyeon called the app an "aggressive marketing strategy" that, if successful, could have further shortened "the profit recovery period" by helping the group establish a loyal fandom. Analysts speculated that Hybe had used the app to test the private messaging paid service, which could have been eventually implemented on their main artist-to-fan communication service, Weverse, depending on Phoning's performance. In April 2023, Weverse announced they would launch a subscription-based private messaging service in line with Phoning's own private messaging service.