FIFA’’s official automotive partner is running a multi-phase, integrated global campaign taking fans across the planet on ‘Glorious World Cup Journey’ to Brazil 2014.
The activation – which is running across multiple platforms and channels and spans traditional advertising, interactive games, competitions and giveaways and unique fan experiences – revolves around web based digital hub at http://worldcup.hyundai.com.
The ‘journey’ initially began back in November 2013 with an introductory, anticipation-building, fan-focused campaign TV trailer called ‘The Beginning’.
This was followed in early 2014 with the introduction of Hyundai’s three soccer star campaign ambassadors – Oscar (Chelsea & Brazil), Iker Casillas (Real Madrid & Spain) and Ricardo Kaká (AC Milan & Brazil).
These three players front the car brand’s flagship worldwide World Cup work and were unveiled by a PR push and a Twitter and Facebook focused, 11-market ‘Fan Photo Shoot Competition‘ with two of the footballers via the hashtags #WithCasillas and #WithKaka.
The ambassadors play a central role across a broad range of the car company’s international creative spanning TV spots, print executions, digital marketing and on-site events and fan experiences and this was led by the May roll out of the sponsors main global TV spot.
The ad’s creative features the three players driving Hyundai cars and gathering together fans from around the world.
This was followed a few weeks later by posting a ‘Making Of The Ad’ online film on the brand’s World Cup website.
The next phase in early June saw the three ambassadors appear at special ‘meet and greet’ fan events where 10 lucky super fans were selected from all those consumers engaging with the ongoing campaign through its Facebook page and via the microsite.
The Spanish national team captain met with his super fans at a Hyundai special event in Madrid,
while Kaka appeared at a similar event in Brazil.
Also in early June Hyundai posted a set of filmed interviews on the microsite exploring the three ambassadors’ feelings about their own World Cup journeys and their hopes for Brazil 2014: such as the Casillas’ interview,
and the Oscar interview.
A further phase of the global activation in early June coincided with the period in which both teams and fans began their journeys to the host nation and saw the auto brand back a set of fan World Cup road trips.
This strand saw four football fans from Germany, Spain, Italy and Brazil come together for an amazing journey and head for the largest global football celebration – the FIFA World Cup.
Each fan created their own road trip film – such as Eva’s Journey:
As the campaign rolled out, content on the central digital hub (http://worldcup.hyundai.com) grew richer.
Its campaign assets, in addition to a kick off countdown clock and showcasing the campaign films and spots, also include an interactive and shareable ‘Shoot & Save Game’ and an ‘Octopus Predictor Tool‘ (a match prediction tool which incentivises engagement by offering prizes ranging from football products signed by the campaign’s three star player ambassadors, to cameras and tablets).
There are also details of Hyundai Fan Parks created around the globe including major car brand backed fan fests in Berlin, Madrid, Turin and Sydney, as well as the Casillas and Kaka fronted invitation to ‘Pin My Fan Park’ (encouraging fans to share their own World Cup moments with others from all over the world and show their support for their favourite teams and players via pins, uploading messages, photos, videos and by creating football music playlists).
A further ‘FIFA Official Programme’ site section includes a series of fan competitions: from submitting ‘country slogans’ to be written on each national team bus, to ‘team prediction’ competition, a ‘young player of the tournament award’, as well as promoting the ‘Hyundai In Stadium Sculpture’ meeting point for those going to the tournament.
This section also outlines details of the official vehicles programme which sees Hyundai, as the automotive FIFA partner, contribute 1,021 official vehicles to the operation of 2014 FIFA World Cup.
And, unsurprisingly, there is also a local market, product-led ‘Vehicle Showroom‘ section of the site too.
The global campaign is further supported by a series of local market campaigns in key countries such as UK (see case study), Brazil,
and the USA (see case study).
Comment
This is a rich and deeply integrated initiative that certainly leverages the auto brand’s FIFA rights and offers a slew of engagement platforms and experiential opportunities to a wide range of demographic groups and personality types.
Indeed, it seems to fit Hyundai’s umbrella strategy to use its football rights as an ‘efficient’ way of communicating with customers by sharing their passion for football and building an emotional connection.
This campaign’s reach, depth and breadth certainly fits the global, efficient part of the brief, but does the core creative suffer from being too general and too all-inclusive?
Is this campaign a classic, global ‘jack-of-all-trades, yet master-of-none’?
It certainly doesn’t quite feel like it offers the kind of emotionally powerful, hard hitting and visceral creative that hardcore, committed fans often prefer.
The car marque has been an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup since 2002 and recently inked a deal to take that partnership through to 2022.
Hyundai (and sister company Kia Motors) places football sponsorships at the very core of its marketing strategy around the world and its FIFA partnership (as the Official Automotive partner of FIFA until 2022) is the spearhead platform.
Hyundai’s official alliance with FIFA dates back to 1999 when it signed as a sponsor of 13 FIFA competitions – led by the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea & Japan. In 2010 it extended the partnership until 2022.
As part of this deal Hyundai/Kia provide the World Cup ground transportation fleets and its rights package spans all FIFA competitions, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the FIFA U-20 and U-17 World Cups for both female and male players, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, the FIFA Interactive World Cup, the FIFA Futsal World Cup, the FIFA Confederations Cup as well the FIFA World Cup itself.
Links
Hyundai World Cup Web Hub
Hyundai World Cup Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/hyundaifootball
Hyundai World Cup YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/HyundaiWorldwide
Hyundai Pinterest
http://www.pinterest.com/worldhyundai/
Brazil 2014 World Cup Website
FIFA Website
