Recently, a dating rumor involving T-ara's Hyomin and baseball player Kang Jung Ho broke out with the former denying any romantic relationship and the latter planning to take legal action for the false reports.

However, there's another issue surfacing from this controversy and that is the suspicion that the report may have been 'media play' or 'noise marketing' by Hyomin's side to get more attention for her solo comeback with 'Sketch.'

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On one portal site, the netizens pondered aloud, "Seems like attempted noise marketing by her company ahead of Hyomin's solo album comeback," "Seems like an album promotion wrapped in a dating rumor," and more.  Of course there were some supportive netizens, too, who had relayed good wishes, but many seemed to wonder if false information had been purposely leaked in order to create an issue. 

Regarding the noise marketing accusations, her agency, MBK Entertainment, stepped up on March 14 to state, "The accusations of media play make no sense.  We never even thought of that."