The objective was to educate in-market car shoppers about Kia’s wide range of tech and safety features, show how complex technologies like “Blind-Spot Collision-Avoidance Assist” work, and position Kia as a cutting-edge automaker with the latest and greatest features. To do that, we were asked to create a series of demonstration videos, explaining 13 different features across eight Kia vehicles.

Instead of creating the tediously dull demo videos that are typically used to explain vehicle features, we decided to truly show them in action — by putting them in the center of a neo-noir action film, where the cars and features take center stage. The Features Film tells the story of a getaway driver trying to escape his life of crime, and the vicious criminal syndicate that wants to stop him at any cost. But the true stars of the film are the Kia vehicles. And through kidnappings, carjackings, romance, and a whole lot of high-speed chases, each smart feature plays a role in keeping our hero a step ahead as he tries to get the girl, get the money, and get away in one piece.

We wanted to target in-market car shoppers who were doing research before buying their next vehicle. But to have an impact on this savvy, millennial, online audience, we knew the usual demonstration videos wouldn’t move the needle. The strategy was to inject entertainment value into the painfully boring format of feature demonstration videos. And engage our audience in a completely unexpected way. At the same time, the features themselves needed to be perfectly demonstrated and brought to life, so that consumers could understand the great technology at the heart of each vehicle.

Since we created a film, we rolled it out like a film. Our campaign targeted not only car intenders, but film fans as well, in a 4-week digital rollout across North America. First we released a cinematic teaser trailer, which was viewed over 5.5 million times on YouTube. Then we “leaked” the first minute of the film, hooking viewers into the story. Next, we cut the full film into 13 individual clips, each showcasing a specific feature, and served them to in-market shoppers through targeted pre-roll and social media placements. All of this led up to the release of the full 6-minute short film, across all online channels. The launch was supported by a social media campaign that included innovative motion movie posters on Instagram Stories, interactive Instagram Polls that drew viewers deeper into the world of the story, and targeted posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

In a year when big-budget films and movie theatres were being shut down, The Features Film let Kia provide our audience with some of the summer adrenaline they were missing. The Features Film was viewed 22.5 million times across digital channels. Across Facebook and Instagram, viewers demonstrated Ad Recall 3.6x higher than the industry average, Consideration Lift 5.6x average, and Favorability Lift 7.5x average. The full film was cut into 15-second clips, each built around a specific feature and targeted to in-market shoppers through pre-roll and social media, which resulted in a video completion rate 360% higher than Kia’s average. And the campaign did blockbuster numbers for Kia sales, helping the company blow their 2020 sales goals out of the water in a year when global car sales were plummeting.