Title | CERATO GT "GET MEAN" |
Brand | KIA |
Product / Service | CERATO |
Category | A05. Automotive |
Entrant | KIA MOTORS AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Idea Creation | INNOCEAN WORLDWIDE AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Media Placement | HAVAS MEDIA AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Production | THE POOL COLLECTIVE Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Production 2 | HECKLER Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Production 3 | CODE ON CANVAS Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Production 4 | NYLON STUDIOS Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Steve Jackson | Innocean Worldwide | Executive Creative Director |
Paul Bruce | Innocean Worldwide | Creative Director |
Roy Leibowitz | Innocean Worldwide | Senior Copywriter |
Chris Wilson | Innocean Worldwide | Senior Art Director |
Craig Sloane | Innocean Worldwide | Executive Producer |
Warrick Nicholson | Innocean Worldwide | Production Director |
Trevor Crossman | Innocean Worldwide | Digital DIrector |
Jye Calder | Innocean Worldwide | Digital Producer |
Simon Harsent | Pool Collective | Photographer |
Jamie Clift | Innocean Worldwide | Group Business Director |
Amber Lowings | Innocean Worldwide | Account Manager |
Will Alexander | Heckler | Executive Producer |
Serena Rettenmaier | Heckler | Line Producer |
Amy Jarman | Heckler | Post Producer |
Simon Lister | Nylon Studios | Sound Designer |
The Cerato 'Get Mean' activation was a playable game housed in a booth that ran for two weeks during the Kia sponsored Australian Open of tennis.
Much of Kia’s growth over the past 10 years had come from conservative middle Australia who chose Kia and their top selling Cerato model almost exclusively because it represented ‘value for money’. It’s a sensible choice. For many, Kia is the cheap alternative to the car they really want. The brief was to shift the perspective, to inject more personality and attitude into the Kia brand, making it more desirable on an emotional rather than level. We needed to lift the brand association. And sell more Ceratos.
You can't make the mean sounds of the Kia Cerato GT without looking mean too. We used this to put the Kia Cerato GT's attitude on full display. We developed an activation where players could race the Cerato GT around a virtual track, controlling the GT by replicating its mean sounds. The meaner you sounded, the faster you went. Cameras in the activation captured the mean faces they pulled along the way. These mean faces were beamed to digital OOH in the area, giving the players a chance to see themselves up on the big screen at one of Australia's biggest sporting events, where they became the face of our campaign.
Changing perceptions of Kia required us to do more than a conventional automotive launch campaign. We needed to do something that would force reappraisal of the brand. Whilst the typical Cerato buyer profile was older and more conservative, Cerato GT represented an opportunity to open a conversation with a younger, more progressive and performance driven audience who had fewer pre-conceived negative perceptions of Kia. In order for them to engage with our brand, we wanted them to participate in our campaign, not simply view it. Our aim was to use the performance of the GT to create a halo over both the Cerato range and the Kia masterbrand. Our strategy was to invite participation and our proposition was ‘It’s the Cerato, only meaner’. We wanted to be bold, impactful and surprise the market with an idea that was unexpected for Kia and the broader automotive category.
In the week prior to the Australian Open, we adapted a game we had built for mobile, putting it into a specially designed booth to be placed in Melbournes CBD. Running for the two weeks of the event, the booth was fitted with digital screens, sound recording devices and cameras that beamed the players faces onto digital OOH outside. The activation booth was clad in screens broadcasting the action inside to the hundreds of thousands of spectators in town for the event.
The activation contributed to these results. 68% higher sponsorship association than the next Australian Open partner. January 2019 became Kia Australia’s most successful month ever. Dealers had to put the GT on backorder, and asked head office to up the price! But most importantly, the brand transformation had begun. We were seen as being more sporty (+%60), with greater performance (+%50), technologically advanced (+%37%). And most importantly, we were seen as being cooler (+50%). Adnews even called Kia ‘The Real Winner of the Australian Open”.