• October 25, 2012

Hyundai is very sorry. No, really. And the automaker would like to express that sentiment with Hallmark-style greeting cards. The condolences go to four cars that the Genesis Coupe R-Spec beat in recent track tests conducted by AMCI. The campaign (okay, Hyundai isn't really sorry) is via AOR Innocean uses the line “Sorry competition, nothing personal.” 

The ads started appearing in this month's issue of Automobile Magazine and will keep going with placements in Car and Driver, Road & Track and Autoweek. There is also an iPad version of the “Sympathy Card” that will be in versions of the auto buff books for the iPad. That version plays on those sappy, misty, scenes of nature we all hate but that we see on cubicle walls with quotations from various Sufi mystics (I'm just imagining this as I haven't actually seen the creative yet.) There is also music with the creative.

Hyundai showed four Genesis Coupes at SEMA, one of which will be part of a Facebook contest titled “Show Us Your Coupe.” The social media-based contest asked Genesis Coupe owners to submit photos on their customized Coupes, along with an explanation on what makes their car the coolest Coupe on the road to win the all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas.