• by Tanya Gazdik , December 24, 2024

Kia is rolling out user-created TikTok videos featuring its new K4 compact sedan. 

The automaker’s creative agency Innocean USA partnered with eight popular TikTok creators to "bring their visual magic" to the most personal aspect of the car purchase process: car configuration.

The creators show how they used a fanciful configurator to change paint colors, interiors and accessories.

The new Kia K4 needed a dynamic way to deliver a configuration experience unlike any other, says Russell Wager, vice president, marketing, Kia America.

When asked at a recent media event if the automaker has a backup plan should TikTok get shut down, Wager said the automaker would deal with it should it happen, but didn’t have definitive contingency plans in place. 

The creative was born out of several insights, says Bob Rayburn, vice president, group creative director at Innocean USA, Kia’s lead agency. 

First, TikTok is now surpassing Google as the preferred search engine for young consumers, he says, and second, traditional car configurators are “boring people to tears,” he adds.

"Car configurators are a necessary evil like watching the airline safety video on a plane,” Rayburn says. “Why can’t they be entertaining? Why do companies put the same configurator that exists on their site into social channels relatively unchanged? It’s tone-deaf to not make a car builder native to the space you are in. You have to take into account the behaviors on social and build towards that.”