• by Nina Lentini , Staff Writer @Nina_Lentini, April 17, 2019

During a panel discussion on “Tightening Up Tier One,” Kimberley Gardiner, Mitsubishi NA CMO, noted how consumers’ views of cars have changed. “The car is not the center of their universe,” she said, so “it’s not very productive to think about brand advertising. We have to treat the learning experience differently and do a better job of leveraging the creative units in digital to give them the information they want.”

These days, customers want to know about the technology: “How does my phone plug in?” They have less time and shorter attention spans so automakers have to compact their information.

Monique Kumpris, senior group manager of brand marketing and advertising at Hyundai Motor America, agreed. “It’s changing so fast, it’s hard to keep up. We keep an open dialogue with our partners like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Hulu” in order to learn what the new capabilities are, what are the best practices.

Moderator Alex Weprin from MediaPost noted that the newer ads are down to six seconds. “What can you do in six seconds?” he asked them.

“The hard part is our mindset, that comes from 30 seconds,” said Gardine. “We have to tell a snippet of a story to get you interested.”

Kumpris said Hyundai is using beautiful film in order to catch a consumer’s attention. “It’s more about the message and understanding the context and what people are looking for.”