Shouldn’t a car have more airbags than cupholders? When a car company charges for roadside assistance aren’t they really just helping themselves? Shouldn’t you drive a car that inflates your intelligence, not your ego?
These are just a few of the questions that Hyundai’s new advertising campaign–aimed at reframing the brand and created by Goodby, Silverstein and Partners–poses to consumers to challenge conventional thinking about the auto industry. This project is the first major creative work for Hyundai by GS&P, which was hired this past spring.
Phase one of the “Think About It” campaign, which kicked off earlier this month, features three weeks of unbranded advertising. The intention is to increase the receptivity of a consumer audience that is increasingly skeptical of marketing messages, by offering startling proof points deployed across print, broadcast, outdoor and online.
“Hyundai suffers from a brand perception problem. They make great cars but unfortunately the badge carries a lot of old baggage from a time when the cars may have been considered inferior. When a brand’s perception and reality are so far apart, the situation calls for a press of the reset button,” explained Will McGinness, creative director, GS&P.
“We wanted to approach this almost as if a new car company was launching. We wanted people to know that Hyundai has values in line with theirs and that it was time to finally pay attention to this car company.”
Consumers are asked to think about those values in eight 15-second spots, directed by Laurent Chanez of Identity Media, NYC. The spots portray driving scenes through varied landscapes that are meant to tap into viewer’s memories and emotions of driving.
“We didn’t want these to feel like overtly typical beautiful driving spots, but rather pieces that felt like they had no beginning or end, pieces that felt emotionally recognizable. Without Laurent’s delicate touch, these could have easily become blurry dollies of landscapes,” said Diko Daghlian, art director, GS&P. “Instead, Laurent really helped us arrive at a place where each 15-second spot felt like it packed in much more than 15 seconds of looking out a window. He really captured a feeling versus a landscape.”
All of the spots drive viewers to www.thinkaboutit.com, which was conceived and designed in-house at GS& P. “The goal of the website for this initial reframe phase that lasts a couple weeks is to collect these thoughts in one place and to position Hyundai as a more thoughtful brand that stands outside of the category,” said McGinness.
The site delves deeper into the issues brought up in the spots. For instance, when you roll over the spot that asks, “Shouldn’t a car have more airbags than cupholders?,” visitors are provided with important statistics like, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that side-impact airbags reduce fatalities by nearly 40 percent but that not every car has them. Then it goes on to say that side-torso airbags are standard on all Hyundai cars. Clicking on illustrations embedded in the text reveal even more details about the characteristics of Hyundai’s airbags.
Transistor Studios, New York, worked with the agency to produce the site in Flash. “We knew we wanted to run larger format videos, which were a little challenging to optimize in Flash for the site. So we basically had to recreate the text animation so it didn’t bog down the user’s processor and cause obnoxious load times,” McGinness said.
A more robust thinkaboutit.com will launch at the end of the month. Phase two of the campaign will expand upon the “think about it” positioning, identify the brand as Hyundai and get people to dig a little more deeply into the brand. The campaign will actively ask the consumer to “think about” unique truths regarding the Hyundai brand. “Current Hyundai consumers are extremely well informed. They’ve taken the time to go beyond the negative brand image, read the consumer reports and learn about the cars. We basically want to bring this information to the forefront and get people to consider Hyundai from a new perspective,” said McGinness.
Director Angie Bird Joins Scheme Engine For U.S. Representation
Scheme Engine has added director/photographer Angie Bird to its roster for U.S. representation spanning commercials and original content.
Bird crafts deeply human and charismatic portrayals of community, empowerment and the rituals of celebration across commercials, elevated documentary and short film. A former agency creative, Bird has a body of brand work consisting of cinematic lifestyle campaigns for Nike, Dove, Allstate, Procter & Gamble and the YMCA, among others. Prior to joining Scheme Engine, Bird was most recently represented in the U.S. for commercials by production house Curfew.
Two years into her career, Bird back in 2016 won a Cannes Young Director Award for “Mean Tweets,” a provocative campaign for Raising the Roof, that challenged stereotypes of unhoused individuals with striking humanizing portraits. The project earned honors at the Clios, and Webbys and was shortlisted at Cannes.
Her Gillette campaign, “First Shave”--a heartfelt examination of masculinity in the trans community--earned three Cannes prizes and won honors at the Clios and The One Show.
As a director invested in films that ignite conversation, and inspire action, Bird embraces challenging, overlooked stories, bringing to light complex, authentically heroic characters faced with cultural stigmatization and gender-based discrimination. She co-wrote and directed "Short Life Stories" for White Ribbon and Canadian agency Bensimon Byrne--a shattering call to dismantle transphobia, following the journey of a transgender woman as she steps into her authentic life. The campaign won six awards at One SCREEN 2024, including Best in Region: North America and Best in Show
“I’m inspired,” affirmed Bird, “to create stories that champion the... Read More