Here's why Hyundai preferred KBC, Bigg Boss on TV but World Cup on CTV for its #6HaiTohSafeHai ad splash

Operating in India for the past more than 25 years now, Hyundai Motor India is one of the top automobile companies in the country today. What accompanies this rich legacy is a steadfast commitment to innovation, technological developments along with safety standardisation.

While connectivity came to the brand in 2019 and Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) in 2022, it is the current year which stood out as the biggest inflection point for Hyundai Motor India as the company, on October 1, announced that each version of its 13 models available in India will have six airbags as standard fitment as the company aims to democratise safety for all.

It was owing to this that the brand’s marketing team wanted to leverage it all via an ad campaign and what better time to do it than the cricketing season itself?

Speaking to BestMediaInfo.com about the genesis of the campaign and its focus on number ‘6’, Virat Khullar, AVP and Vertical Head- Marketing, Hyundai Motor India, stated that since the ICC World Cup is currently being hosted by India and a ‘six’ is the safest shot a player can hit as well as the biggest score one can get on a ball, the brand decided to link the same with that of its 6 airbags announcement and leverage the resulting ad campaign #6HaiTohSafeHai across me

“Since the announcement was a big addition to our entire product range and a big corporate initiative taken towards safety, we decided to clearly benchmark the 6 airbags in our vehicles with that of cricket. In fact, two of the three TVCs revolve around cricket. Moreover, it is simplicity and the colloquial nature of the campaign which is getting us very good recall,” he said.

TVC 1-

TVC 2-

TVC 3-

For the three 20-second campaign films which fall under the brand’s overarching safety campaign, Hyundai Motor India will be leveraging TV, news and impact properties strongly.

That being said, the brand is currently the principal partner on two of the largest impact properties running in India- KBC and Bigg Boss and will therefore be leveraging the same via FCTs and integrations inside the shows to gauge the benefits of television strongly.

“A 20-seconder with a simple direct message with higher frequency is objective because it may not require too much storytelling since the communication is very clear. Hence, we've just kept 20 seconders for all three of them and we’ll be using them across different mediums and genres such as entertainment, news, sports, etc. to drive the message across to consumers,” he said.

In his views, while airing the ad on the ongoing cricket tournament is just one part, the flavour of entertainment today being cricket is another, therefore, what the brand wanted was to create a topical advertisement that could be aired on news and GEC channels on TV and OTT alike along with other mediums.

“Currently in October till about 18-19th of November, this country will be obsessed with the game of cricket which is one of our biggest passion points and at the same time what it also does is it integrates the country together. That being said, numbers four and six are very colloquial to the game which is why the idea was to create an ad campaign which tells about the recent announcement (rolling out of 6 airbags in each car from October 1, 2023) around the same and link it with cricket,” he said.

Khullar also emphasised that the campaign is planned in such a way that even though the ad will air on CTV during CWC23 owing to its age-agnostic viewer base, the brand will also leverage other non-cricket impact properties at large.

In fact, the advantage of this is that it helps the brand reach the consumers or the decision makers, be they males or females, as well as the key influencers in the choice-making process like teenagers and kids and let them know that now (From October 1, 2023, onwards) every Hyundai car has 6 airbags.

“The aim is to create a frequency or targeting that looks after the entire family viewing together. During the World Cup 2023, we will be looking at very large expands or takeover buys, both top funnel and bottom-funnel on digital,” he said.

Additionally, he also mentioned that the brand will be innovatively advertising on the half pages of the sports pages of key national dailies which will be covering the India matches of the WC2023 a day after it takes place since it has an extremely strong recall and also adds to the topicality of the campaign.

Upon being questioned on the pecking order of Hyundai’s cohort-based targeting, he replied that the first spot is occupied by entertainment and news, followed by sports and then music when it comes to targeting especially on digital and other mediums.

That being said, the brand has already utilised its ambassador associations with Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma for the ongoing campaign for both digital and social media. Previously, Hardik Pandya also led the ad campaign centred around Exter's launch.

Hardik Pandya in a recent Hyundai Exter ad -

“It is because of our key focus areas of design, safety, and futuristic features and technology that we stand apart from the competition. In fact, it is because of this that we have been witnessing our customers’ average buying age going down year on year, in addition to getting higher average ticket size year on year. This is mainly fuelled by the fact that the younger customer in India of today is coming in with a higher disposable income,” he said.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com