The Campaign

To commemorate the centennial of 'The Endurance Expedition,' Hyundai Motor planned on creating an all on-location filmed, pure documentary of the trans-Antarctic expedition with Patrick Bergel, the great-grandson of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Two years of preparation period for the expedition included modification of a commercial SUV, Santa Fe, for the appropriate adaptation in the arctic environment, and the conditioning training of Patrick and the teammates to prepare themselves for the arctic environment. To commemorate the expedition of a hundred years ago, the names of Ernest Shackleton and his 27 crew members, along with the messages from their descendants were engraved on the surface of Santa Fe, the automobile that crossed the Antarctic in this expedition. And finally, in December 2017, Patrick and Santa Fe successfully completed the traverse of the Antarctic in thirty days with total travel distance of 5,800 km, completing the unfulfilled dream from a hundred years ago.

Execution

1. Preparation - Found the descendants of the 27 original crew members in 10 months - Modification of the Santa Fe (replacement of the fuel tank, 38 inch tire, modification of portal gear) - Engraved the messages on the vehicle to signify that the original crewmembers and their descendants are on board 2. The execution - Successful traverse of Antarctica,5,800km in 30 days. ('16 .12. 04 ~ '17 .1. 02) - Pre-Launching: ‘Shackleton's Diary’ telling ‘Endurance Expedition’ with ‘Eleni Kalokoti’ - Launching Event in London, UK (April 19th 2017). - Campaign Launch: ‘Main Film’, 'Descendants Interview', and 'Dedicated to Shackleton' film are released on Youtube. The campaign site includes more detailed information such as vehicle modification and Shackleton. - After-Launch: ‘Patrick’s Diary’ by the great-grandson telling his expedition. - Additional: decided to donate the vehicle to the Antarctic Base for research. Hyundai UK will be promoting ‘Special Edition’

- The first crossing of Antarctica by passenger car (5,800km in 30 days) - The only automobile marketing campaign to achieve 100M YouTube views globally in 6 weeks - “Top1 on Viral Video Chart”- AdAge - “The Top-watched video this week” for 7 weeks – Automotive News - Earned global media coverage on the campaign/expedition in about 40 countries - Gained 13,500 followers on Social campaign account in a week after the pre-launch (Facebook 8,500 Follows, Instagram 5,000 Followers) - Gained 2.3 million visitors with more than 200% page views on website (4.83 million) without banner advertisement for landing

The Situation

‘Shackleton’s Return’ was the campaign honoring the great explorer Shackleton by completing the Trans-Antarctic expedition which he tried to accomplish but failed, a hundred years ago. Furthermore, main character of the campaign was not Hyundai Motor, but Shackleton and his crewmembers, Patrick, the great-grandson of Shackleton, and the descendants of Shackleton’s original crewmembers. The fact that Shackleton’s great-grandson took on the challenge to complete his great-grandfather’s dream of a hundred years ago, and that Hyundai Santa Fe was the first passenger car to cross the 5,800km of the Antarctic was spotlighted in the U.K, also in various media around globe.

The Strategy

There are three strategic points which Hyundai Motor has planned for this campaign. First, Shackleton's leadership parallels Hyundai Motor’s core philosophy of 'Together for a Better Future,' which value customers above all else. Second strategic point of the campaign is to show Hyundai Motor’s vision that the car of the future should make possible for people to go anywhere, at any time. Third strategic point is to demonstrate Hyundai Motor’s outstanding technology. As the sincerity is the most important factor for the three points above, we wanted to emphasize on the historical figure Shackleton, and created a documentary film with all on-location shootings in Antarctica. During the preparation, the campaign was crafted through an in-depth research which included multiple consultations with related organizations, and interviews with the descendants of the crewmembers. We have recreated and provided the contents on all digital platforms to shed a new light on his story.