The newly launched Hyundai Exter is India’s most affordable SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), with class-beating traits like those of a tiger—agility, strength, and aggressiveness.

Hyundai Exter was offering outdoor travel features associated with premium SUVs at a mass price point for the first time. The car had already been launched through a well-attended press conference. However, there was a need to create deeper content for car lovers to appreciate these distinctive features.

Hyundai also needs to further its commitment toward CSV (Creating Shared Value) by rallying the communities it serves for a larger societal good, with a focus on three themes—Earth, Mobility, and Hope. This would be done by including auto enthusiasts and consumers in the commemoration of India’s 50 years of tiger conservation.

We needed a communication programme that would meet these goals while reiterating Hyundai’s strong connection with India.

Save the Tiger - Seeking God in the Jungle!

India’s tiger population has swelled from 268 in 1973 to 3,167 in 2023 across 54 tiger reserves under ‘Project Tiger’. To commemorate this achievement, the Indian Prime Minister hosted an event at Bandipore, which is South India’s leading tiger reserve, thereby putting ‘Project Tiger’ in the national spotlight. This sparked citizens' interest in these tiger reserves as destinations for off-city travel and adventure tourism.

This provided a perfect backdrop for the creative idea to organize the 7th edition of Hyundai Motors' annual PR property, the Great India Drive, with the theme “Seeking God in the Jungle”. This had India’s leading journalists riding the Hyundai Exter, India’s most affordable sub-compact SUV, thereby promoting both the new product and Project Tiger to the masses at large.

India’s top 20 Auto Journalists drove to the top 18 Tiger reserves in the newly launched Hyundai Exter.

India boasts a large base of specialist auto publications. Unlike general media, their subscribers are loyal followers with deep engagement levels. Celebrated auto journalists also have a mass following on their social media platforms. They are in an opportune position to incite social change.

Therefore, the strategy was to handpick the 20 best auto journalists from all over India to embark on a trip to the most famous tiger reserves of India riding in the Hyundai Exter, making the journey a symbiotic saga of exploring the tiger and the car with tiger-like traits of agility, strength, and aggressiveness.

These journalists would create original content spanning travelogues, video reels, podcasts, and social media posts on India’s tigers and their trails, for car enthusiasts to amplify the message of ‘Project Tiger’.

The Hyundai Great India Drive, with the theme ‘Seeking God in the Jungle’, was strategically flagged off from Bandipore, where India’s Prime Minister had hosted the Project Tiger commemoration event.

We had 20 participating auto journalists who were briefed by a leading wildlife expert and photographer Dinesh Kumble on various aspects of Project Tiger and why it is an important cornerstone of the wildlife ecosystem.

For a superior integration of product messages, a workshop was also organised on Hyundai Exter's unique features, including over 40 advanced Safety Features, peppy performance and impressive fuel efficiency.

These journalists visited 18 top tiger reserves of India, creating engaging content on the relevance of tiger population, their habitats and experiences of the wild trails.

Real-time media updates, videos, chats, Instagram reels and Q&A sessions were streamed through the trip.

India’s topmost automobile magazines, blogs and journals supported the campaign, with leading names like Overdrive, Car India, Auto X, CarWale, Car & Bike, Zig Wheels, Power Drift, Flywheel, Turbo Charged, Auto India, Auto Today, Evo India, Motoring World, Times Drive, among others.

The participating top auto journalists created more than 100 hours of original video content on the trip.

22 in-depth travelogues were published in top automobile magazines, with high retention value akin to coffee table books.

The results were outstanding:

22 in-depth travelogues published with a reach of 34.4 Million

Social media buzz reached 126 million

YouTube views crossed 1.5 Million

The content that was created, had the Indian Tiger at the centrestage leading to massification of Government of India’s message to support tiger conservation. According to a dipstick conducted by the brand, there was a 77% increase in consumers positive sentiment towards saving tigers as a key priority.

The bookings for Hyundai Exter went into an overdrive, resulting in a 6-7 months’ waiting period.

The car has received over 110,000 bookings since launch and continues to see 20,000 bookings a month.