Kia Ambassadors Nadal & Hewitt Lead Integrated AO Activation That Spans Social Films Series & Stinger Launch

As the Major Partner of the Australian Open (AO), Kia continues its role in supporting tennis in general and the tournament in particular with a multi-platform activation programme fronted by global tennis ambassador Rafael Nadal and Australian tennis legend Leyton Hewit.

As well as providing the tournament’s courtesy car fleet, the work spans on-court and at-ground logo presence, plus onsite branded spaces and hospitality, promotional activity across Melbourne, a ‘Tennis Passport’ competition, two digital and social video series (‘Road to the AO’ and ‘Open Drive’), as well as the Australian advertising launch campaign for the Kia Stinger.

Kia has worked Rafael Nadal for a decade as its lead tennis ambassador and the current world number one player again fronts its 2018 work in harness with retired Australian tennis star Leyton Hewitt.

It was the latter who led car brand’s first AO 2018 work, a ‘Tennis Passport’ competition that rolled out in November 2017.

Both Hewitt and Nadal fronted with the official Kia tournament car fleet handover in early January.

The car manufacturer has sponsored the Australian Open since 2002 and over the past 17 years the Kia fleet has clocked up more than six millions kilometres driving players, partners and officials to and from the tournament.

Nadal also starred in the the auto sponsor’s lead pre-tournament spot, revolving around a coloured tennis ball created collage image, called ‘Together For A Greater Surprise’.

The athlete endorsers then continue to appear in Kia marketing assets through the tournament across the car brand’s digital and social channels – linked by the #KiaTennis hashtag – and led by two social video series.

The ‘Road to the Australian Open’ is a daily series of digital social spots fronted by Leyton Hewitt.

While running on the AO’s own social channels is a parallel activation phase also featuring Hewitt and Nadal called ‘Open Drive’ (which continues on from last year’s work) and also revolves around a daily video series based on player interviews.

Kia is also using the Australian Open Tennis as the backbone for its Stinger vehicle launch campaign: promoting the new grand tourer with a campaign developed in harness with agency Innocean Worldwide Australia.

The ‘Kia Stinger: For The Drive Of It’ campaign is spearheaded by a series of TV commercials that run through the two-week tournament telecast.

These are led by a hero 90-second commercial (supported by a mix of 60, 45, 30 and 15-second edits).

Says Innocean’s Executive Creative Director, Steve Jackson: “Just when you thought driving cars were endangered, Kia surprises everyone and rolls this beauty out. A car simply built for the hell of it, for the drive of it. So we decided to have a bit of fun with it. Justin McMillan was fantastic and we even got to film with Steve Windon, DOP of The Fast And The Furious. We only broke one camera lens chasing the Stinger!”

Adds Manuel Tyras, Kia’s GM of Marketing: “The Stinger launch is a culmination of a lot of planning, insights and research underpinned by what is a great car with a simple, powerful execution of what a driver wants out of a performance car.”

The Innocean Worldwide Australia creative agency team worked with production company Goodoil Films, director Justin McMillan, post production outfit ALT VFX, Nylon Studio for sound and music,

Comment:

The core objective behind the work is part of the company’s umbrella objective of reinforcing Kia’s youthful and dynamic brand identity.

The approach seems to be a success: Kia delivered 28% growth in Australia in 2017.

The Australian Open is Kia’s longest running major sports sponsorship and, as one of the biggest sports properties in the Asia Pacific it has a track record of comprehensively activating its rights.

This year’s campaign follows on from last year’s ‘Power To Surprise’ activation programme (see case study) and Kia’s 2016 tournament work which blended its sports/entertainment partnerships and also featured Nadal in a campaign was built around the car company’s collaboration with 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movie series (see case study).

Other partnerships it uses to engage the same strategy range from the NBA (see case study) and various football/soccer alliances such as its position as the official automotive partner of the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Football Championships (see case study).

In addition to the Kia alliance, The Australian Open’s other corporate partnerships include top tier sponsor Kia, as well as ANZ, Jacobs Creek and Rolex, plus partners Accor Hotels, Aperol Spritz, Blackmores, Canadian Club, Coca-Cola, Coopers, CPA, Emirates, Frabntelle, Haagen-Dazs, Hisense, IBM, K&L Gates, Lavazza, MasterCard, Medibank, City Of Melbourne, Optus, Toshiba, Wilson, William Hill, Woolworths and Yonex.

Links:

Kia

http://www.kia.com/au/experience/kia-tennis.html

http://www.kia.com/au/cars/kia-stinge…

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

https://twitter.com/kiaaustralia

https://www.facebook.com/KiaAustralia

https://plus.google.com/+kiaaustralia

Innocean Worldwide Australia

https://www.innocean.com.au/

Australian Open

https://ausopen.com/