1. Kia’s upcoming ad campaign for the all-new Kia Soul features hamsters running in an exercise wheel, to symbolize the unfortunate people who don’t drive a Kia Soul. Computer-generated images show streets and interstate highways lined with hamsters running in their wheels.
Then up pulls a Kia Soul, a small, attractively styled cross between a station wagon and an SUV. The hamsters inside are bobbing their heads in unison, in time with the pulsing music. The “cool” hamsters “stand out in a sea of sameness,” said Michael Sprague, marketing vice president for Kia Motors America, Irvine, Calif.
Kia and its ad agency, David&Goliath, El Segundo, Calif., employ the same concept with a school of fish, with chess pawns, with sheep and with robots. The multimedia ad campaign includes TV, outdoor, print, direct mail, in-person events, sports marketing and a big online component. The TV ads will start April 1.
Surprisingly for a brand that built its reputation on inexpensive, entry-level cars, the average Kia buyer is 52 years old. That’s only slightly younger than the U.S. industry average of 53, Sprague said, at a press introduction for the Kia Soul here last week. Some less-expensive Kia models, like the Rio and the Spectra, average younger. Several more-expensive models, like the Sedona, Rondo and Borrego, average older, he said.
Therefore, Kia is on a drive to attract younger buyers. The Kia Soul is the leading edge of that effort. But it’s a fine line in advertising, between a message that says, “Be a nonconformist,” versus images that say, “Join the in-crowd and be like us.”
The Mini brand from BMW does a good job of striking this balance. Mini’s tagline is, “Let’s Motor,” with text and images explaining how quote-unquote “motoring” is different from plain old driving. In a similar vein, Kia’s tagline for the Kia Soul is, “Soul, A New Way to Roll.”
Saab is another brand that tried a similar appeal. Saab had ad campaigns in the 1990s around the theme, “Find Your Own Road.” Animated characters performed small acts of rebellion, like not shaving. In my opinion, the ads made existing Saab owners feel good about themselves. That’s a perfectly valid thing for advertising to do. However, the ads didn’t do enough to inspire people to try Saab for the first time.
In Kia’s case, the hope is that the “hamster” ads will make people want to be a “cool” hamster, or fish, or pawn, or robot, or sheep. The risk is that some viewers will react by saying, “Are you calling me a sheep?”
- http://www.bnet.com/blog/auto-business/kia-soul-advertising-aimed-at-would-be-nonconformists/444
2. Kia claims mobile advertising outperforms traditional Web campaigns
Automaker Kia Motors claims it is having success using mobile campaigns to drive sales of its Soul and Sorrento lines of motor vehicles.
The automotive manufacturer has teamed up with Internet radio provider Pandora to promote the Kia Soul and with Web magazine producer Zinio to push the Kia Sorrento. The campaigns have produced significantly better response rates than comparable traditional Web advertising, per Kia.
“We see differences between the desktop ads and mobile ads we have used to market our products,” said David Schoonover, national manager of customer relationship management and non-affiliate marketing for Kia, Irvine, CA. “Every single time we’ve had that situation [where we have used both], mobile has outperformed desktop.
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/6746.html
3. We are sure we are not the only ones that resort to channel surfing when our favorite TV show becomes the victim of yet another commercial break, but we are also sure that no one was dumb enough to change the channel when the Kia Soul commercial came on the big screen. The commercial opens up in a quiet neighborhood featuring hammers commuting in their ever-revolving hamster wheels. As the run-of-the-mill hamsters truck along aimlessly on their circles of death, a bright red Kia Soul thumping to music by Marz featuring Pack and Mumiez comes rolling along. Inside, the hip, music-loving rodents are bobbing their heads and tapping their paws expressing just how cool they really are. With a quick, cool guy...umm cool hamster nod, the Soul rolls on its way to wherever the young, trendy hamsters are hanging out these days illustrating their “new way to roll”.
It is because of this hilarious commercial that Kia has won the “Automotive Ad of the Year” award from the Nielsen Automotive Advertising Awards event at the 2010 New York Auto Show. This is their fourth year doling at such awards and the winners are chosen by a panel of TV viewers who watch the programs and commercials in a non-controlled, natural environment and then answer survey questions about what they have seen.
"Truly effective advertising starts with a great creative idea," said Nielsen Automotive President Lois Miller. "When you combine that idea with a memorable and unique hook that grabs viewers’ attention, you are going to get the results that we saw from Kia this year."
Hit the jump to see Kia’s so-called competition as well as the press release.
http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/kia-soul-wins-automotive-ad-of-the-year-ar87494.html
4. the casino conglomerate MGM Mirage pulled off an end run around the NFL’s ban on Las Vegas advertising during Sunday’s Super Bowl thanks to a Kia Motors ad—and the NFL is not pleased.
The football league has long barred Las Vegas from buying ad time in nationally televised games, but it loosened its rules in December to allow commercials for the destination as long as it didn’t show the Strip, casinos, drinking, or sexual activity.
Yet Kia Motors had a one-minute third-quarter spot during the Colts-Saints game in which life-size toys and sock puppets are seen cruising down Las Vegas Boulevard in a Sorento past the Statue of Liberty at the New York-New York resort and then, The Right Stuff-style, power-walking into the Monte Carlo Hotel-Casino. Both are owned by MGM Mirage.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy sent this terse email statement to Portfolio.com: “CBS sells the ads that appear in the game. We did not see this ad before it aired. The shots of the casinos did violate our policy, and we have since addressed the matter with CBS.”
A CBS spokeswoman has not yet returned calls or emails for comment.
http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/advertising-marketing/2010/02/08/nfl-angry-at-kia-super-bowl-ad-in-las-vegas/
5. Kia Motors was the big winner at the 2010 Nielsen Automotive Advertising Awards, earning the title of Most Effective Automotive Ad of the Year.
In the winning TV ad, streets are occupied by hamsters running in place on exercise wheels until a red Kia Soul pulls up to a stoplight as the passenger window rolls down to reveal a trio of music-loving hamsters who have found “A New Way to Roll.” The ad was found most effective by Nielsen’s panel of 2.5 million television viewers who answered questions about how much they remembered about the programs and commercials they watched the previous evening throughout the past year. Only TV ads that launched in 2009 were eligible for nomination.
“Our data show that truly effective advertising starts with a great creative idea,” said Lois Miller, President of Nielsen Automotive. “When you combine that idea with a memorable and unique hook that grabs the viewer’s attention, you are going to get the results that we saw from Kia this year.”
This was the fourth year of Nielsen’s Automotive Advertising Awards, which were once again held at the opening breakfast of the New York International Auto Show. Nielsen also distributed awards to Ford for “Green Ad of the Year” and to Toyota for “Sales Event Campaign of the Year.”
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/kia-rolls-home-with-nielsen%E2%80%99s-top-auto-ad-award/
6. Kia Motors America (KMA) today officially released a new advertising campaign, titled "This or That," for the 2010 Kia Soul. "This or That" is the rebirth of the initial Kia Soul award winning advertising campaign created by David&Goliath, KMA's advertising agency of record, and brings back the loveable Hamsters due to popular demand. Soul is a unique and highly personalizable urban passenger vehicle and the new spot builds on its creative theme in the style of a music video set to the classic hip hop track "The Choice is Yours" by notable 90's hip hop group Black Sheep. The new campaign launches today on cable TV networks Comedy Central, Fuse, MTV, MTV2 and Spike and runs through July. Beginning May 28 it will appear in movie theaters across the country as well as have a presence online at Pandora, Facebook, Social Vibe's PetVille, KMA's Kia.com and a YouTube contest.
http://www.thenewsmarket.com/Releases/StoryDetailPage.aspx?GUID=f2f44912-4371-4081-96e1-7ef46f5f65b7#
7. The non-living version became a sensation last year when Zhu-Zhu pets were the must-have toy for the pre-teen set. Suddenly, hamsters - living and stuffed - went from cute to cool. And when sex can't be used to sell, cool is.
Enter the advertising campaign for the Kia Soul featuring hamsters. It has a catchy tune with the hook, "You could go with this/Or you could go with that." It makes a comparison between the Kia Soul compact station wagon and mundane objects like a toaster or a car cut out of a cardboard box. The hamsters roll down "Hamsterdam" Avenue in what is the Hamster version of New York City. And to add to the cool, the hamsters are dressed in hoodies and baggy clothes to look like urban youths.
The message: The Soul is a great car if you're a young city-dweller who likes rap music.
But I don't see it that way. If Kia really wanted to portray its "youth" model as being just right for city kids, why not actually show city kids? White, black, Hispanic, Asian, doesn't matter. Why not all of them? The hamsters are condescending and insulting to urban, and especially urban African American, culture.
Kia has taken a chance and failed to try to make urban look cute and cuddly. There is nothing cute and cuddly about it. It's hard for me to talk about a culture in which I have no direct experience, but I have a lot of respect for the norms that exist. It may not be the ideal image for everyone, but it sure is the ideal for the target demographic the ads are trying to reach.
http://technorati.com/business/advertising/article/kia-soul-hamsters-fail-to-make/
8. While UK market sales look likely to fall steeply this year, one manufacturer is seeking to boost numbers through its ground-breaking guarantee and a raft of new brands. As Kia Motors UK launched its upgraded Sorento and new Venga in Barcelona this week to British media, managing director Michael Cole talked to just-auto about how the carmaker wants to drive its retail share from 2% to 3%.
Kia Motors' UK unit is banking on its seven-year warranty and new models to help fill the gap in an inevitably falling market as the government-backed scrappage scheme comes to an end.
The Korean manufacturer estimates a "significant decline" in cars sold through the deal, with numbers falling from 282,000 units last year to 115,000 in 2010, but is nonetheless aiming to replicate its own record-breaking 50,000+ sales in 2009.
"Most of the industry would say the UK market would be around 1.8m [units] - we can expect realistically to see a decline of 10% this year," Kia UK managing director Michael Cole told just-auto.
"I want to do 50,000 units in a 1.8m market and it requires us to grow our share. I look at 2009 and we did well with scrappage, but outside of that, we grew our retail share from 1.8% to 2%. What will happen this year to continue to drive that? Growing awareness of the Kia brand can only be helped by a seven-year warranty and by two new products in the Venga and Sorento."
Allied to that, concrete growth proposals from Cole include increasing the Kia dealer network from its current 146 to between 165 and 170 outlets, with the rise occurring in major metropolitan areas. Those dealers are building on the warranty with the Kia MD reporting a "fantastic reaction" from them to the new seven-year offer.
Cole believes the extended guarantee will underpin customer faith in the Kia range but does not see competitors offering a similar deal anytime soon.
"The real reason for the seven-year warranty was a statement about our confidence in our products," he says. "The idea was to be able to prove to people the cars made in Europe were equal to those in the domestic market. Someone might come next week and say seven-year warranty as well, but I don't think they will."
Kia has mounted a major advertising push around the seven-year offer, with greater showroom footfall as a result and Cole says this will continue to be the marketing focus in the first quarter of this year using TV and outdoor poster campaigns.
And capitalising on parent group Hyundai's partnership with the football World Cup in South Africa this year, Kia UK will also use the tournament to raise its profile through sponsorship of a 'Fanfest' area in London.
Cole pronounces himself happy with the UK dealer network and stresses the importance of the British market, with his operation supplying 20% of western European volume last year. And he maintains Kia has no problem with being perceived as a value brand. "I still want people to look at Kia and say that is really good value," he says. "But we are not a cheap brand."
Kia is also keenly aware of its cost base but Cole insists: "The thing is not to let the cost base chase the volume. Because of all the market difficulties, people have been very conscious of that. If we can get back to that 50,000 [units] volume, I am confident we can keep our network healthily profitable."
Cole highlights the trio of Soul, Rio and now Venga, as proof that Kia can compete in the challenging B segment. "Rio was a very traditional, five-door car offering value for money, then the Soul [which is] funky and fun and now the Venga with space practicality," he notes.
"The B segment has always been our weakness and when it accounts for so much of the market, going with that three-pronged attack, I am very confident that will go a long way to achieving 3% retail share this year."
Cole recognises the emergence of Chinese-made cars, but maintains their strong domestic growth will keep them occupied for the time being. "We should only be as worried as anyone else," he says. "We would be naïve to say we don't care about it, but anyone coming in with a new product that is price sensitive, then we should be aware, but we don't think we should be more concerned than anyone else."
Cole promises "more to come from us" especially by mid-2012. "We produce evolution," he says.
http://www.just-auto.com/analysis/kia-uk-confident-of-2010-uplift-md_id102944.aspx
9. As one of only three automotive designers to be awarded with an Honorary Doctorate at the Royal College of Arts, it’s needless to say that Peter Schreyer is one of the automotive world’s most famous and successful designers.
After starting his professional career at Audi in 1978 as a design graduate, he moved on to Volkswagen in 1999. It wasn’t until 2006 that Kia swayed the German born designer to join its ranks. He is most famous for the iconic exterior design of the original Audi TT in 1995.
CarAdvice had the chance to sit down with Mr Schreyer at the 2010 Geneva Motor show to discuss cars and the direction Kia is heading, with respect to automotive design.
One of the key things Mr Schreyer reiterated to me was Kia’s rather neutral image prior to his arrival. Part of his design philosophy at Kia has been to unify the brand’s models with a “family face”, as he calls it.
While the design of cars is moving forward in the typical sense, Mr Schreyer worked to bridge the gap between efficient and non-efficient cars with the Sportage. He explained that cars like hybrids and vehicles geared toward extreme fuel efficiency shouldn’t need to look totally different to other cars on the road.
His aim with the Sportage was to give it the rugged looks of an SUV, while also adhering to aerodynamic principles often limited to cars like the Toyota Prius and its other counterparts.
I asked Mr Schreyer if there was room to further evolve the design of a car. If you were to forget about everything you knew about car design to date, what would you change to improve cars as they are today.
Mr Schreyer’s Kia designs to date have all been cars built for mass markets. When asked about the possibility of a sports car to express Kia’s emotions, Mr Schreyer said
He went on to talk about there being room for further products in the Kia range and ones that involve emotion and take away a purchase based on a rational decision alone. This is certainly similar to the path Hyundai has taken over the past years with cars like the Genesis.
During times that he is not based in Kia’s Frankfurt design studio, Mr Schreyer’s family gets around in a Kia Sorento and Kia Soul. He says that could change once the Kia Megentis is released at this year’s New York Motor Show, so we will certainly be keeping an eye out for it.
Peter Schreyer has been a design revolution for the Kia brand. His influence is sure to propel the Korean manufacturer well into the future and from all counts it is being lead with positive praise.
http://www.caradvice.com.au/60510/interview-with-head-of-design-at-kia-peter-schreyer/
10. Audio interview with S.K. Ahmad, the Marketing & Business Development Manager of Al Majid Motors, the UAE dealer for Kia. Topics include the company’s new models such as the Cadenza and the Sorento, as well as their future plans for the local market.
http://www.drivearabia.com/news/2010/02/11/interview-s-k-ahmad-al-majid-motors-kia/
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