Background

Recently KIA has improved the quality and design of their cars, winning countless international design awards leading the industry with their seven year warranty.

However, while product quality and value have constantly been improved, consumer’s awareness and image on Kia brand is stagnant.

There was a consumer product perception gap - KIA is still perceived by many drivers as a budget brand, producing box-like cars. Kia is still perceived as a value for money brand in most of the markets.

Objectives

Through the first Global Brand Campaign, we set up the following target.

1. To change perception by emotionally connecting with global consumers and by establishing a fruitful relationship,

sharing beliefs and mindsets in line with our brand

2. To improve Kia’s brand status fundamental to enter Global top 100 brands researched by Interbrand by 2012

Strategy

Our future buyers live in converging digital world, using the internet as their main place of research. They don’t trust in traditional advertising; instead, 68% prefer their peer’s recommendations and like to be admired by friends for their smart purchasing, declaring themselves fans of the things that they like.

So, we embedded social in our communications by harnessing the power of the things that people like by recruiting new fans of the brand

Creative

The new I Like Kia spot on TV (also available on portable platforms), the supersized OOH in key cities and the domination strategy in print created awareness that drove mass engagement through a consistent ‘Tell us what you like‘ call to action for our facebook hub.

Kia’s global brand ambassador, Rafael Nadal, appeared in a video on TV showing what he likes with the Facebook “Like” button and fans could play the game “Guess What Nadal Likes.”

On the Facebook page Fans had the opportunity to tell us ‘what they like’ and ‘what inspires them’ in order for KIA to create better designed cars in the future.

They created interactive personalized videos based on their personality and Facebook Likes through Like Lab: Kia employees analyzed what consumers liked, so that they could produce better Kia designed vehicles in the future

Results

1. 870,489 new Facebook fans, +112% increase

2. 50% times more Likes per day

3. Daily active users increased from 8,839 to 128,575

4. KIA entered ‘Top 100 Best Global Brands’ in 2012 for the first ever in the brand’s history