INNOCEAN UK
Kia continues to support cricket throughout the 2024 season. We’ve created a brand new film that highlights the ongoing sponsorship, featuring four of Surrey Cricket Club’s pro players. We hear what it takes to play at the top level of the game and are treated to teasing glimpses of the EV9 – Kia’s flagship new all-electric 7-seater SUV.
The exceptional quality and attention to detail in the Genesis GV60 and GV70 electric vehicles are on display in our latest spot for the premium automotive brand. The campaign launch coincides with the rollout of Genesis UK’s retailer network across the country.
The film runs in TV and through digital channels, supported by other digital media and OOH.
We’re glowing with pride as we unveil our new film for Kia, entitled “The Lonely Firefly”. Created to support the Kia Sportage, one of the brand’s most important models, the ad shows that the laws of attraction towards this car can apply to more than just human beings. Featuring stunning locations in Scotland and lovingly crafted CGI fireflies with personality.
The film runs across TV, cinema and digital channels and is supported with other national and local advertising channels.
Kia has supported cricket for many years, and this was a chance for the brand to give a little back to the game. Young cricketers could enter a competition, and the lucky winners got to spend an action-packed day of training at the Kia Oval, with hands-on time from the pros—including Sri Lanka and Surrey legend Kumar Sangakkara. We captured all the action on the day in this new film.
Hyundai, one of the world’s largest car manufacturers, has been on a transformative journey into the world of electrification and alternative fuel vehicles – unrecognisable from the brand that launched in the UK many years ago, winning awards left right and centre for its unique designs and clever technology. IONIQ 5, Hyundai’s flagship all-electric vehicle, had recently been voted World Car of the Year 2022, so it was a good time to draw attention to the progress the brand has made through a national campaign, with the aim of increasing brand awareness and consideration.
It was also a great time to introduce UK audiences to the global pronunciation of the brand name; traditionally, the UK had always pronounced it differently to everywhere else, and this was the moment to introduce a change. With these objectives firmly in mind, we set to work.
The centrepiece of our campaign was a nationwide TV advert. People in the UK don’t usually take too well to being lectured on how to do or say things, and we knew that if we were to achieve the objective of introducing the global pronunciation of the brand name, we’d have to do it in a way that didn’t sound too telly – especially as the brand had been using the UK pronunciation for years beforehand.
So we knew that humour and characterisation were important. Cue a montage of people asking their phones to take them to “Hy-un-dai”, only to find themselves somewhere else entirely, be it the High ‘n’ Dye hair salon, the High End Pie catering van, a Hawaiian Tie clothing shop, or something else equally as silly. The film ends with a frustrated man outside Highland Eye opticians being helped by a driver of an IONIQ, who points out it’s pronounced “Hyun-dae, by the way”. Which of course, the phone now recognises.
The TV ad was supported by a national radio campaign to promote awareness of the brand’s recent award wins, and financial offers. The mispronunciation theme translating neatly into the audio-only format.
Having invented a number of fictious businesses all with names that might be confused with “Hyundai” for the TV ad, we decided to expand on the idea by giving each of them their own real life setting. We created a simple web page for each business, purchased the web domains, and brought them to life. Each page had its own look and feel, whilst also signposting people that if it’s not what they’re after, to head over to Hyundai.co.uk.
To complete the journey, we ran search ads and social media assets that encouraged people to explore the sites themselves before ultimately finding out more about Hyundai and the progress the brand has made.
The campaign has performed exceptionally well. According to the YouGov poll in January 2023, Hyundai enjoyed the biggest increase in brand awareness for January going from 5.4 on Christmas Day, the day before it broke, up to 18.7 – a jump of 13.3 percentage points, making it their “Auto Advertiser of the Month”.
It continued to perform effectively all the way through February and into March 2023, with YouGov’s follow up analysis stating that it’s not an incremental increase in brand chatter, but a quantum leap, with huge increases in word of mouth and ad awareness (tripling from Boxing Day to mid February 2023). Brand consideration was also more than 2 percentage points higher on 1st February 2023 than a year earlier, going from 13.5% to 15.7%.
https://business.yougov.com/content/7854-hyundai-smashing-records-with-latest-ad-campaign
It was also talked about by high profile presenters including Chris Evans on radio and Rory Reid for AutoTrader. And it generated a lot of chatter on socials, with a mixture of opinions – some people welcoming the different pronunciation whilst others steadfastly promising never to change. But regardless of whether people adopt the new pronunciation or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s resonated with the consumer, got people talking about the brand and has had a positive, real effect on business performance.
Brand sponsorship deals and naming rights can be an enticing and rewarding marketing tool, however it takes more than just a few logos dotted around a sports ground to win over thousands of sports fans.
Real impact comes from brands reaching fans in a compelling way. Together with our long time global automotive titan Kia have nailed this by weaving its identity and brand into the fabric of the iconic Kia Oval (the home of Surrey County Cricket Club for over a decade).
As the new cricket season approached, it seemed like the perfect time to push Kia’s relationship with the grounds to new heights. The brief was clear, through fresh new social media content, make the already established partnership “bigger and better”.
We were tasked with developing the social media content, from ideation to execution, that would simultaneously appeal to and resonate with cricket fans, whilst spreading increased awareness of Kia’s association with the sport and further amplifying the automotive company’s new branding.
Securing time with three high profile Surrey County Cricket players – Chris Jordan, Ollie Pope and Rory Burns – at a pre-arranged media day, we set out to gather as much visual and audio recordings as possible. The challenge? We only had one hour with each player to gather the content they needed and most importantly, get it right under the strict time constraints. There was no option to go back and re-record.
Given these time limitations, a solid plan was needed to maximise the sessions with each player, all whilst sticking to the brief and keeping the pre-recorded car footage front of mind. We drafted scripts prior to meeting the players, which ensured the voice over part of the sessions were kept as short as possible. Video briefs and storyboarding meant videographers could capture the staged visuals as swiftly as possible whilst again staying in line with the original brief.
Our video production team successfully gathered footage of each player’s ‘pre-match’ moments, as well as their ‘celebrations’ on the field.
The strategic preplanning of scripts and visuals meant that we were able to savour time to capture authentic and candid interviews with the players. The effective use of time helped the agency stockpile a large variety of visuals and audio that would aid in the execution of the brief.
With the work we did during the day, we are able to capture the following content:
Three edits were developed with the footage we shot, one for each player. The tone of the videos was adapted based the footage and recording for each player, varying between the unscripted and the scripted to produce edits that feel relaxed, natural and engaging.
The use of archival cricket footage meant less pressure to capture all footage needed on the day. This type of footage also added further dynamism to Kia’s visuals and those that were recorded during the sessions.
The collaboration between Kia and Surrey County Cricket Club yielded a resounding success, creating a seamless link between the automotive giant and the cricket world. The final visuals and content not only established a compelling connection between the sport and the brand but also delivered an exciting and interactive viewing experience.
In total, the three films accumulated over 29,500 views on Surrey County Cricket Club’s Instagram channel with an astounding 3.1 million impressions from the content on Kia’s own channels. The results exceeded all expectations and received much praise from cricket fans, the cricket club, and the car manufacturer.
Kia commended the videos, dubbing them as the best piece of cricket content produced in recent years. The social media surge that followed the launch of the content solidified the success of the brief with the videos playing a pivotal role in elevating the partnership between Kia and Surrey Cricket Club.
