b) Awareness Building
Creating Brand awareness was the most crucial task at Kia’s hand when they initially entered the
Indian market as very few people were aware about the Brand in India. This is also particularly
important as Indian market is often described to be extremely competitive and brutally unforgiving.
Many renowned automakers, such as Renault, Fiat, Mitsubishi, and General Motors (Chevrolet),
have abandoned India due to a lack of success with the general public. Though they have been
operating since a long period of time, they were still unable to decipher the India code. To overcome
this dissonance in market, they did a lot of research on the Indian market and learned a lot from
their Sister Hyundai Motors’ experience.
Strategy:
Most vehicle manufacturers focus on features, performance, and other tangible characteristics of
their brands; however, Kia sought to establish a unique voice. They did this with their first campaign
‘Magical Inspirations, Stunning Designs’, which became YouTube’s most watched ad in 2019
garnering ~232 million impressions till date. But Kia was apprehensive that many people might not
have understood the characters ‘Johnny’ and ‘Meerkat’ who were primary part of the campaign.
Kia wanted to create a unique voice and brand persona to generate engagement with. Kia also
sought to reach out to internet audiences that are aware of new releases and products in the car
industry and build a good link with the brand in back of their mind. To achieve this Kia hired the
Isobar India to run their digital marketing campaign.
Isobar’s first action of business was to create online identities that would have a life of their own,
rather than merely tom-tom the brand, for ‘Johnny’ and ‘Meerkat’. Content pieces were developed
and shared on social media that highlighted the competition between Meerkat, who wanted to be
an influence for the Kia Motors design, and designer Johnny, who refused to be inspired by Meerkat.
As the launch date and momentum for Kia Seltos approached, the firm developed more complex
campaign messaging like ‘Badass by design’ where they tried to create a positive association with
the word Badass by showcasing badass characters ranging from Iron Man to Arya Stark. The
campaign also gradually switched its attention from the brand to the product’s features.
c) Engagement:
Twitter – Engagement rate – Percentage Increase – 3.2%
Instagram – New Followers – Percentage Increase – 50% (70,539)