Advertising Age Names Hyundai Marketer of the Year
How do you explain an auto company that boosts year-over-year sales and gains market share in a year when the overall industry is in near freefall; brilliant marketing according to trade industry publication Advertising Age. So brilliant in fact, that the weekly magazine has just named the Korean automaker as Marketer of the Year.
Ad Age cited the company for both the boldness of its messages and its willingness to be radical in reaching out to its audience, noting that it bought Super Bowl commercial air time to advertise a very simple commercial stating the following: “Now finance or lease any new Hyundai, and if you lose your income in the next year, you can return it free with no impact on your credit,” and then followed that up with the outrageous notion that luxury need not be out of the reach of everyman.
It accomplished that by scooping up all of General Motors’ abandoned ad spots during the Oscars, an event that skews heavily female, and advertising its new luxury Genesis Sedan to people with “intact dreams.” Long story short, Hyundai’s market share is up during the first ten months of 2009 from 3.1% to 4.3% and in September, when the rest of the industry experienced a 22% sales drop, Hyundai’s sales went up 27%.
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