From the very start, collaboration was the driving force behind “Miles That Define Us”—not a response to a blanket RFP sent to many publishers. It began with conversations between WSJ’s SVP of sales, Hyundai’s CMO and its agency, during which the challenges, accomplishments and goals of the company were discussed. The resounding theme from these talks was Hyundai’s commitment to advancing humanity. Yet most Americans had no understanding of this corporate mission and the progress it was driving forward. How could Hyundai be seen as more than a car company?

The WSJ and Hyundai teams collaborated on a solution that placed the storytelling and trust of WSJ at the center of its recommendation. To shift perceptions, the program needed to demonstrate the many ways Hyundai is making a difference in areas important to WSJ readers, and to deliver those messages through proven formats—deeply personal human-interest stories, backed by data.

“Miles That Define Us” was inspired by Hyundai’s core corporate mission to base all parts of its business in the service of humanity. The subjects explored were inspirational, topical and relatable—a reflection of the brand’s DNA and what drives Hyundai’s business.

Much like the WSJ newsroom plots out its editorial calendar, “Miles That Define Us” was a year-long program with strategic releases around key moments for the Hyundai brand. The strategy, which produced a staggering 256 pieces of content, called for a matrix of both business-centric (or B2B) content, alongside more emotional consumer storytelling that would appeal to a broader audience. In realizing this creative strategy, “Miles That Define Us” influenced both the hearts and minds of WSJ’s diverse audience. All content lived within a custom-built hub on WSJ.com, with a media strategy that served readers content across their digital ecosystems—including Apple News, social channels and the WSJ app.

“Miles That Define Us” has been one of WSJ’s most insights-driven custom content programs to date. In the early stages of our partnership, we agreed that the stories being told throughout the year would be informed by proprietary intelligence tied to the WSJ newsroom’s content metrics. Using these audience and topic insights, we as partners connected the dots, finding storylines within the Hyundai world of innovation and progress that we felt would resonate most with WSJ readers.

But that was just the first step. After aligning on multiple potential storylines, the WSJ team fielded an online quantitative survey of approximately 220 WSJ print and digital subscribers to measure their interest in specific concepts. The results were both eye opening and directionally affirming of the editorial suite of articles and videos that were eventually shepherded into production.

On the whole, the “Miles That Define Us” custom program garnered high visibility for an overall increase in awareness of the Hyundai brand. The program has achieved unparalleled scale with 161M+ impressions, 39M+ video views and 603K pageviews. Users spent more than 8.6k hours consuming the content and videos, with an average video completion rate of 42%+. Hyundai gained double-digit increases in both perception and consideration post-content exposure. Virtually all respondents rated each measured asset of the custom content favorably and more than 80% agreed that Miles That Define Us improved their perception of Hyundai.