Hyundai Is Teasing The Clichés Of Luxury Marketing In Their Latest Ad, “Feel The Feeling”
To promote N Series, Hyundai partners with R/GA and Old Spice director Tom Kuntz for a series of ads that poke fun at luxury consumption.
R/GA was chosen to lead strategy and creative for the launch of Hyundai’s sub-brand ‘N’ in the beginning of this year. The “Feel the feeling” campaign is a collection of films inspired by Director Kuntz’s wild character inspiration for the brand N. The purpose of the films are to demonstrate the feeling of driving a car in a cruel irony.
The commercials have three different versions. They are about a hairdryer, a pair of headphones and cologne, with identical names and time duration close to 40 seconds. The main film embraces all 3 themes and lasts about one minute and a half.
A man gets in a jacuzzi, and puts his headphones on. As the bath begins to boil, he acts a little strange and begins to transform into a horse while the new car’s features are being shown, such as an electronic sound generator which is a feature in the new i30N.
The Cologne spot portrays a shirtless man, who puts on a scent of ‘burnt rubber’, which is a metaphor for driving a vehicle fast. The sound effects follow the same action and the man becomes more happy with the action.
This is the weirdest one. A male model comes and begin staring at a hairdryer and starts using it on his face. When he pushes the buttons respectively, the car gets faster, as the same logic that works on a hairdryer.
The films, which will be running on the brand’s social media channels try to highlight the sensations of driving a car. Plus, according to the agency, this can be considered a ‘smooth warning’ to automotive and luxury brands who sometimes take themselves too seriously.
James Temple, Executive VP, Chief Creative Officer EMEA at R/GA says,
Our aim with this campaign is to stand out of the crowd, to shake-up the staid formula of car advertising, and most importantly to have some fun with viewers. We want people to rethink their views of Hyundai as a practical, compromise choice, to a brand which shows people through the power of ‘N’ that they make cars that are fun to drive and which aren’t like anything else out there.
Minsoo Kim, Head of Marketing Division at Hyundai Motor Company added,
It is our mission for more people to enjoy the mischievous grin you get when driving an i30N, and these films are just the start. Performance car advertising has been the same for decades and has become out of touch with what people really want … This is N, and it’s here to disrupt the category, to subvert cliches, have some fun and share a joke with performance car drivers who enjoy the feeling of driving a powerful car.
Overall, the films all look super-odd and make you feel disturbed, but maybe they want you to feel that way, because in reality no one can feel this much pleasure while consuming any kind of product!
