• by Karl Greenberg , August 5, 2014

Hyundai is exclusive automotive sponsor of TNT’s new spy show “Legends.” the automaker is kicking off the integrated partnership with a preview a week before the show actually airs. Consumers can see the preview show on TNT video on demand, or via WatchTNT app on mobile devices or online at TNTDrama.com, per the network.

The show, with which Hyundai Motor America is touting the 2015 Genesis, has a Zelig-esque detective at the FBI who can transform himself into different characters. And, like Woody Allen in the aforementioned film (though without the self-effacing existential humor, no doubt) the detective starts to question his own identity.  

Hyundai, extending the identity-bending theme, will have a co-produced native content play. The network says the film "The Genesis" also evinces a first-ever branded content partnership between TNT and digital content studio New Form, whose owners include Discovery, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Elements of the film, which features the Genesis as the main character’s car of choice, will be on TNT video-on-demand; the TNT broadcast of the show itself, and Hyundai social channels. The entire film will be on the Legends show page at TNTDrama.com, where the Hyundai Genesis will serve as the exclusive sponsor. 

The partners say Hyundai's sponsorship of the entire first season of the show gives it category-exclusive advertising status. Also, the Genesis is integrated into the initial episodes of the drama in a storyline involving the lead character “becoming” Dante Auerbach, an international arms dealer known as the “Lord of War.” Hyundai is to be sponsor of the social media aggregator on the Legends home page and insider updates distributed across the show’s social media handles, per TNT.

Genesis’s coming-out party was held on a much bigger stage. Hyundai was a top-tier sponsor of the FIFA World Cup.