• by Christine Champagne , April 4, 2011

New mid-size sedan campaign outdoes the competition

Popular Mechanics calls it "stylish." Autoblog describes it as "seriously attractive," and The Los Angeles Times says its upscale appearance outshines both the "dowdy" Toyota Camry and the "bulbous" Honda Accord.

It's the 2011 Kia Optima they're talking about in such flattering terms, and that's notable because it's simply unheard of for a mid-size sedan to get such rave reviews when it comes to appearance. Mid-size sedans are affordable, practical family cars that fill a utilitarian need, getting people from one place to another - they're not generally known for their looks.

But Kia has revamped its lineup in recent years, hiring former Audi design director Peter Schreyer to create eye-catching automobiles. Beyond looks, the new Kia Optima has gotten high marks for performance and price and was one of six vehicles to win Edmunds' insideline.com 2011 Editors' Most Wanted Awards. "To overuse a metaphor, they're firing on all cylinders," says Edmunds senior analyst/editor-at-large Karl Brauer.

Once known for making cheap cars, Kia has drastically improved its vehicles and changed perceptions in recent years, according to Brauer. "They're breaking out of the category of, 'I'm looking for the cheapest car I can buy,' and now it's, 'I'm looking to spend the least money I can spend and still get a very nice car,'" he contends. Having "a very nice car" to sell certainly gave the creative team at David & Goliath (d&g) something to work with when it came time to create an integrated and interactive advertising campaign for the Kia Optima, says D&G executive creative director Colin Jeffery, noting, the car is unique in that "it satisfies both needs and wants in the mid-size category."

The agency ultimately created an advertising campaign that, in its initial phase, positioned the Kia Optima as "an object of desire" through a commercial called "Sweet Dreams." Directed by Lance Acord, the spot, which premiered last December and ran in heavy rotation in cinemas and on television, finds a little boy embarking on a magical dream drive while tucked into his race car bed. During the drive, he zooms past a rocket ship, galloping horses and a speeding train, enters a tunnel and emerges as a grown man driving a Kia Optima. The spot wraps up with the line: "No one ever dreamt of driving a mid-size sedan - until now."

The Kia Optima made its Super Bowl debut last February, during phase two of the campaign, via a commercial titled "One Epic Ride" which took viewers on a wild ride through time and space as everyone from a policeman to Poseidon to an alien to the ruler of an ancient temple tried to get their hands on the car. While the spot continued to make the Kia Optima an object of desire, it also promoted the Kia Optima as "Not Your Average Mid-Size Sedan," and it did so in a big way through a visual-effects spectacular directed by Noam Murro. "It's the antithesis of mid-size sedan creative," Jeffery contends. "Far from expected."

"One Epic Ride" was posted on kia.com and YouTube before the big game, and after its February 4 online debut, Kia search activity increased 700 percent and remained strong throughout Super Bowl weekend, according to Reprise Media. Meanwhile, as of press time, the commercial had garnered nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube. People had incentive to watch the spot. It provided a clue they needed if they wanted a shot at winning the One Epic Ride-themed contest, which offered consumers a chance to play a game and nab a Kia Optima. The game was launched just prior to the Super Bowl, and participants had to register at oneepiccontest.com and answer a series of questions to complete an online grid-based hieroglyphic game set in an ancient temple.

This game wasn't a walk in the park, by the way. Players had to pay close attention to Kia Optima advertising in various mediums including print outlets like USA Today, the aforementioned TV spots (the final game clue was featured in the Super Bowl spot), social media and online. "Some people got upset that it was hard, but we were giving away five cars, so we made people work," Jeffery says, adding, "Some people stuck with it and liked that it was challenging." While D&G has worked on online games before, One Epic Contest was the biggest in terms of scale, and the effort paid off. According to Kia, more than 165,000 people had visited oneepiccontest.com as of February 7 and over 30,000 people registered to play the game.

In fact, the game proved so popular it remained available on oneepiccontest.com for those who wanted to continue to play. Players can't win prizes now (a 57-year-old woman was the first to complete the challenge and among the five winners announced in February), but some people just want the satisfaction of finishing, Jeffery says. Elsewhere online, Kia formed a partnership with SocialVibe and became the exclusive automotive sponsor of Zynga's "Big Game Tournament" for players of games including FarmVille, PetVille, Mafia Wars and Café World. The sponsorship exposed the Kia Optima to an audience of more than 200 million monthly social gamers.

The campaign wasn't just all fun and games. D&G also revamped the Kia Optima microsite. Promoted via banner ads on Facebook, MSN, Xbox Live, Fox News, Yahoo and TubeMogul, the microsite is accessible through kia.com and is designed to appeal to a core audience of men and women in their mid-30s and mid-40s. "They're savvy, and when they're making large purchases, they really do their homework," Jeffery says. "Whether it's a new washing machine or a refrigerator or a car, they like to have all the facts-so the Web site is very detailed. It's designed to give people all the information they need to make an informed decision."

Bill Roden, D&G digital creative director, adds that while the demographic being targeted doesn't necessarily hate advertising, "they certainly like to look behind the veneer of any marketing campaign and get down to the nitty-gritty."

D&G went to great lengths to give potential buyers the full picture. Via one interactive feature on the microsite, "we've actually taken the engine out of the car, and we've presented it in a way where we not only allow you to see what it looks like and hear about the main features, we follow a drop of gas all the way through the engine," Roden says.

Other interactive demos show everything from how the traction control operates to how the heated and cooled seats work.

Social functionality is built into the microsite, allowing visitors to see commentary from Facebook and Twitter. The site also pulls in Kia Optima-related discussions and content from around the Web. The talk is moderated, but only to weed out inappropriate language. "We want to capture honest dialogue," Roden says, noting that the target market really looks to their peers to help them make purchasing decisions.

Of course, there is some risk in giving consumers a voice on a product site, but Brauer thinks Kia was confident enough to do so because the company is putting out such a solid product these days. "Before you start jumping up and down at the party, saying, 'Look at me,' you'd better make sure you're well dressed, and everything's buttoned up," Brauer says, "and that's what Kia has done."