In the summer of 2018, Hyundai launched the all-new Veloster. Perfect timing for a partnership with Marvel Studios and their new film, Ant-Man and the Wasp, the highly-anticipated sequel that premiered in July. Sharing strikingly similar target audience demographics, Ant-Man and Veloster made a perfect cross-promotion match, leading to Hyundai’s big screen debut as the hero vehicle in the hit movie’s action-packed chase scene. With a cool twist. Just like Ant-Man, the Veloster could shrink and grow at will in a superhero-like way. To celebrate Hyundai’s huge moment in pop culture, we created the tiniest partnership in the world. Then generated the biggest impact possible with the most scalable campaign ever: the Hyundai “Ant-Ads” campaign.

The ability to shrink and grow at will is Ant-Man’s superhero power. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, inanimate objects could be size-shifted as well. Including the Hyundai Veloster. Which allowed characters driving the car to blast into and out of scenes, shrinking and growing as needed to evade danger and escape pursuers. It made for crazy exciting action sequences. And an unexpected, yet totally relevant, core idea for our work. With license to adopt Ant-Man’s superhero powers, we applied size-shifting capability to our campaign, creating “ant-sized” messaging — tiny ads, activations, and integrations — that seemed to hide in plain sight. Searching for the ads created fun, entertaining interactions for consumers. And a deeper brand connection — fans felt like they’d entered an ant-sized universe. One that reinforced the “logic” of the Ant-Man storyline in a believable way, making the campaign feel like a natural extension of the movie.

Recent market research found that 45 percent of the people who bought the original Veloster model bought another Hyundai as well. With the launch of the all-new Veloster, we wanted to leverage that “halo effect” on younger buyers, growing consumer loyalty among the vehicle’s core target — millennials skewing slightly male, with an affinity for excitement and individuality. The core audience for Ant-Man and the Wasp was strikingly similar: 15 to 30-year-olds, skewing slightly more male than female, who like Ant-Man’s narrative style, humor, supernatural occurrence, and action. They love the energetic, no-holds-barred attitude of the Marvel franchise. Exemplifying those same traits, the Veloster aligned perfectly with the mindset of millennial Ant-Man fans, who we sub-categorized into three groups: rabid comic book fans, die-hard Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, and general action movie fans. Focusing each execution on at least one group, every message prompted fans to visit HyundaiUSA.com.

Small scale, ambient ads don’t lend themselves to new car launch campaigns. Unless, that new car is the Hyundai Veloster. Featured in the Ant-Man and the Wasp feature film, our Veloster campaign was tailor-made for the smallest scale execution in advertising history. In fact, with creative license to shrink the Veloster down to a toy-sized car — as it does in the movie — we scaled every execution down to “ant-universe” size. For our scavenger-hunt style activation, we hid 1,000 tiny, collectable Velosters around Los Angeles. Then using geo-tagged Instagram clues, we sent fans searching for the miniature cars, which granted them special access to the Ant-Man and the Wasp premiere. In print, we took over the whitespace between the frames in comic books, placing tiny ads in a medium we invented. On HyundaiUSA.com, we hid pixel-sized clues that, once found, earned fans movie tickets to opening day shows

All combined, the “Ant-Ads” campaign grew Hyundai’s brand sentiment 77%. It generated 1.4 billion impressions, while increasing Hyundai social mentions 88%. All of which translated into quantifiable sales sheet ROI — actual dealership traffic increased 150%, leading to an amazing 10% YOY growth in Veloster sales. Ant-Man and the Wasp did all right, too. Premiering at #1 the week of its release, the movie went on to earn an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Ultimately, it grossed over $622 million worldwide, making it an exceptional Marvel Universe franchise for Hyundai to have partnered with, leading to exponentially more exposure for the Veloster launch than a traditional paid media campaign could generate.