Shortlisted 2022

Automotive

Brand

Hyundai

Entered by:

Warner Bros. Discovery with Havas Media Group

A Better Way

The Challenge

In Europe, Hyundai is best known for their “value for money” cars. But there is still little understanding of the brand behind these products. Very few people know the brand’s vision of “progress for humanity”, the company’s commitment to “zero emission” and their long history in research and development to become a sustainable future mobility provider. In fact, Hyundai is leading the electrification of fleet, championing hydrogen technology and a pioneer of “clean(er)” motorsports, but nobody knows. The launch of the IONIQ 5 gave a good opportunity to use the momentum and tell the story of the brand behind this stunning car.

As they are the next car buyers and key for EV adoption, Hyundai wanted to engage with younger people, Generation MZ (18-44y/o). The brand needed to increase their understanding of the brand’s vision and concrete solutions towards clean mobility, and to do that we had to go beyond the typical product focused campaigns.
Nevertheless, there is widespread scepticism towards car brands’ statements on clean mobility, and Hyundai is no exception. People think they are just greenwashing. Car brands are seen as part of the environmental problem, not the solution. Our challenge was to bring Hyundai into the limelight regarding their commitment to a sustainable future in the automobile industry and engage with a purpose demanding but sceptical young audience.

We had to come up with an idea that would help us connect with our target audience in a meaningful way and convince them that, when it comes to clean mobility, Hyundai walks the talk.

The challenge was translated in clear communication objectives and KPIs. Within our limited budget we had to produce engaging and enjoyable content, get an effective reach of at least 10 million, and lift positive brand perception and increase consideration within the reached audience.

The Content Solution

How to get attention for a car brand of which many in our key audience think it is not interesting for them?

Our idea revolved around the “docutainment” trend. We identified this format to connect with our audience and tell the Hyundai story. Our strategy was based on establishing credibility by staying away from the typical corporate brand films and use a neutral and journalistic tone. We needed content that didn’t shout ‘advertising’. Therefore, we partnered with Discovery.

Discovery developed the creative concept “a better way“ – a 3 episode adventure to discover Hyundai’s better way to cleaner and more sustainable future mobility. The miniseries invites our audience to go on a journey with Bertrand Piccard – a world renowned Swiss explorer, psychiatrist, and environmentalist, as our voice. Piccard is one of the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe, he accomplished the first round-the-world solar flight in history and set a record for the most miles driven by a hydrogen car without refuelling.

The audience will discover through his eyes what Hyundai are doing to achieve zero emission. “A better way” are on one hand side the innovations of Hyundai, but also “a better way” to tell a corporate story. The non-staged interviews, paired with epic landscape and natural close-ups, voiced over by Bertrand, allows the audience to immerse and believe into the narrative.

The three episodes were titled ‘the vision’, ‘the reality’ and ‘the thrill’: Presenting Hyundai’s battery and hydrogen electric technology, unveiling an existing business case for large scale hydrogen mobility and confirming that clean mobility can still be exciting with electrified motorsport.

In these 3 episodes the audience understands through Piccard’s conversations with key protagonists what drives Hyundai, their strong commitment to research and a shared spirit to overcome boundaries and conventions of the industry. Piccard speaks with the real protagonist behind Hyundai’s innovations and not with the typical press contacts – for example the head of the fuel cell research centre, the head of the hydrogen power plant and a fuel cell powered truck driver, and he even takes the Prince of Monaco for a spin on the Monte Carlo GP track in an electric race car. This human touch is not only more interesting for the audience but makes the story tangible and the brand credible.

The Media/Content Amplification Solution

While the content is designed to overcome the audience’s cynicism, we crafted the media plan to make the facts about Hyundai’s innovation easily accessible, consumable, and entertaining.

We knew from research that our partners’ channels deliver the widest reach internationally and high affinity. We decided for a multi device approach to reach our audience in the most relevant and contextual matching program environments including TV, VOD, display video units and social media. Discovery Channel, Eurosport and the social news outlets Seeker and Now This were our channels of choice.

Since this was an international campaign running in 9 countries, and we know that local language content yield higher attention, all videos were adapted to the local language with subtitles.

The campaign launched on Discovery Channel prime time slots with an epic 120” TVC. Adapted shorter video formats were placed on Eurosport’s streaming product and Discovery’s YouTube channel and across the networks’ websites as display video. Each of the 3 episodes were on-air for 4 weeks and after the third episode there was a specific ‘sum-up’ social edit on Now This and Seeker’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram handles.

The main objective for media was to maximize attentive unique reach of each episode and digital video was optimized towards click through rates to bring the audience to the campaign’s landing page where next to additional information the audience could enjoy a full length (240”) edit of the episodes. Next to the paid media, the campaign was leveraged on Hyundai’s social media handles, in newsletters and through PR.

The Result

The campaign achieved the set objectives and over delivered on all KPIs.

To control and measure the effectiveness of the campaign we used a variety of methods and techniques. Discovery provided people meter reports for TV reach, we used Google campaign manager and freewheel to track the digital and social delivery and run Google Analytics over the landing page. On top we used a third-party research company for a brand and content survey with an exposed vs. control group methodology.

The campaign delivered over 24m impacts across all channels with an ad recognition of 48%. Therefore, we over delivered on the effective reach target by 15% (11,5million vs. 10million).

Our content engagement was with a 3,1% CTR 47% better than average Hyundai video CTR (direct buy VOD).
We achieved 196k page views (92% new visitors, +37% incremental Gen MZ audience share), attention and likability for the content of our reached audience was 23% better than on control (non-discovery/Eurosport viewers).
Positive brand impression was lifted by 52% vs control. Hyundai perception as leader was lifted by 23points vs control, familiarity with Hyundai’s innovation was lifted by 27%.

And finally, brand consideration of Hyundai was lifted to 30%, a 76% increase vs. non exposed control group.
And although this campaign was mostly launched to lift brand perception, it had a small business effect in France where more than 3,4% of the engaged audience went to a Hyundai dealer (taken from the tracked campaign exposure and the Google store visit goal).