• by Tanya Gazdik , January 12, 2025

Kia's heartwarming 2024 Super Bowl spot featured the EV9.

While it’s still TBD if the brand will run an ad during the Big Game, Kia America is planning to get into the action this year with a sponsorship and a promotion.

The automaker will once again sponsor the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter. Alongside that, the brand will offer the Kia Squares promotion, which will award a vehicle to a winner every quarter. 

Traditionally, the squares game consists of  a 100-square grid, with each square representing the last digit in each team’s score. At the end of each quarter and at the end of the game, there is a winner based on their assigned square, according to Sports Illustrated. 

“Unlike other forms of betting that require knowledge of the game, this is purely luck-based,” according to the Sports Economist. “It’s easy for anyone to join, whether they’re a seasoned NFL fan or just watching for the halftime show. The simplicity and excitement make it a staple of Super Bowl parties nationwide.”

About 25 million U.S. fans participate in a squares game every year, says Russell Wager, vice president, marketing, Kia America,

“We will have our full lineup in the squares so people could win anything from a Carnival to an EV9 to a Sportage, to a Telluride,” Wager tells Marketing Daily, adding the brand has never had a Super Bowl-related contest before. 

Kia will promote the game on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter, an annual live opinion poll of the game's television commercials during the U.S. telecast of the Super Bowl.

 The media plan also includes digital and social, Wager says. 

“We're going to use our website and we're going to do a CRM outreach to all of our owners in our databases, and will do some paid media as well,” Wager says. “So we feel we'll get it out pretty quickly. And usually these type of things get spread by themselves, which is fine. Technically it's a contest and people love contests, so it would just be another way for us to engage with people.”

If Kia does end up buying a Super Bowl spot, there’s plenty of creative in the pipeline that could work, he says, including phase two of the K4 launch or a spot in the works focusing on how consumers can now charge the Kia EV9 at Tesla superchargers.