Hyundai's Super Bowl Plan Spans 4 In-Game Spots, Ads, Experiential, A Ticket Comp & Live Social War Room

In its first year as the NFL’s official NFL car sponsor, Hyundai is amping up its auto activation with 4 TV spots in the Big Game which form the core of its Super Bowl activation.

While the car marque has more than 400 vehicles serving as promotional cars throughout Super Bowl week, a series of on-site experiential activations in San Francisco in the week leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, a #BecauseFootball ticket competition and is running a live war room (staffed by 20 Hyundai and Innocean marketers) to roll out real-time content and track in-game social-media trends, it is the TV commercials that sit at the heart of its leverage plan.

Even before the car maker had official league rights, it has been a long-term buyer of in-game Super Bowl ad space (whilst it sat out last year, 2016 marks its eighth Big gam,e appearance in nine years), but 2016 sees it increase its ad buy with two 30-second spots in the first half, one 60-second spot just prior to kickoff and an additional 60-second ad before that in the pregame show.

In another costly move to make the most of its rights investment, the brand has not only lined up three star name directors for its spots (including Friday Nights Lights helmer Peter Berg), but also some celebrity power in front of the camera too.

Kevin Hart will star in the brand’s pre-kickoff ad ‘First Date; while Ryan Reynolds fronts one of the in-game commercials called, appropriately enough, ‘Ryanville;

Taken together they aim to offer a little something for the brand’s various segment targets – spanning themes of fun, fear, compassion and love – to capture the brand’s umbrella ‘We make things better’ tagline while each execution highlights specific new features and technologies.

Adopting the classic Super Bowl spot tactic of the moment, all the commercials are initials teased with pre-launch clips in late January in the 10 days leading up to the Big Game, before the full commercials are unveiled online closer to game day.

The Hart-led, pre-game ‘First Date’ ((promoting the new Hyundai Genesis and its Blue Link Car Finder feature) was initially promoted with two digital and social media teasers: ‘Teaser 1’,

and ‘Teaser 2’ were posted online,

before the full ad itself was revealed.

The second pre-game ad is called ‘Better’ and this 60-second commercial dovetails with the company’s current rebranding campaign.

It’s an emotive brand spot that opens with a newborn and follows him growing up and trying to make the world better.

This idea aims to reflect the fact that ‘Hyundai was born to make things better. It’s in our blood as well as our brand strategy’ (at least that’s according to Hyundai USA CMO Dean Evans.

The copyline reads: ‘Better is the engine that drives us to do what we do to make the cars we make.’

Ryanville, which promotes the Elantra and emphasises its safety features through a narrative based around people being distracted by multiple appearances of the actor, was also teased across the car brand’s social and digital platforms,

before the full add was posted.

The fourth commercial, called ‘The Chase’, also promotes the 2017 Elantra (focusing on its remote start feature) and again was initially amplified with two fear-fuelled ‘they’re coming, be afraid’ teasers,

before the full ad reveal on 1 February.

All creative carries the Big game campaign #HyundaiSuperBowl hashtag.

All of the new creative is being developed in harness with Hyundai’s agency of record Innocean Worldwide.

‘It’s fitting that our most strategic Super Bowl marketing program ever at Hyundai is happening during Super Bowl 50 and what is anticipated to be the most-watched TV event of all time,’ said Dean Evans, chief marketing officer, Hyundai Motor America.

‘Our entire marketing team, both internally and at the agency, is hard at work developing the integrated campaign that includes four new ads and bringing attention to some of the dynamic vehicles and technologies that make up Hyundai’s lineup in a fun and engaging way.’

Comment

The thinking behind this multi-ad, thematic spread strategy for the biggest US TV audience of the year is, according to Innocean USA CEO Tim Blett, as follows: ‘Super Bowl Sunday is a day that you need to be out in front, and there needs to be a universal truth in your ads, and you need to give something for everyone.’

While ‘The Chase’ has already racked up 15m+ YouTube views on the Friday before the Super Bowl, ‘First Date’ and ‘Ryanville’ are clocking in at 3.8m and 3.6m views respectively.

Is this evidence that the internet loves talking animals even more than Hollywood stars?

Earlier this year, Hyundai inked a deal with the NFL, separate from its Super Bowl package, to become the League’s official car, SUV and luxury vehicle.

The campaign this first year has revolved around celebrating fan passion, including sponsorship of the NFL’s Kickoff celebration and the release of two fan-inspired ads that run every Sunday: ‘D-Gate’ and ‘Field Goal’. (see case study).

Links

Hyundai USA YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/HyundaiUSA

Hyundai USA NFL Website:

https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nfl

Hyundai USA Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hyundai

Hyundai USA Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Hyundai

Hyundai USA Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/hyundaiusa/

Innocean Worldwide.