Family Brand Kia Switches to K-Pop, Post-Olympics

Kia Motors, a subsidiary of the country’s largest car maker Hyundai Motor Co., has signed a partnership agreement with YG Entertainment that manages famous K-pop including BlackPink and BTS to carry out marketing campaigns on a global scale with the clear aim of maintaining a youthful brand image among younger consumers.

The first project under the partnership will see Kia Motors serve as the title sponsor for BlackPink’s 2019 World Tour that will be held around the world including seven cities in Asia starting with Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore this month.

It will also provide vehicles to BlackPink during the world tour and play branded content featuring group members and its five-door compact sports sedan Stinger at the concert venues to drive awareness to a larger and younger audience.

The brand will also create a separate exhibition zone outside the concert venues where it will display flagship models including Stinger and crossover sport utility vehicle Soul. The company will also provide different entertaining events for each city hosting the BlackPink concert.

“This partnership gives Kia a unique platform to engage with a young, trendy audience in several of our most important growth and volume markets,” said Cho Yong-won, chief marketing officer at Kia Motors. “While Kia is well-known for its sports marketing initiatives, engaging with popular culture is expected to help the brand further maximize our exposure to a younger generation.”

Tapping on the YG deal, Kia Motors also plans to launch diverse activities and experience-based events that allow artists to communicate with their fans and produce branded content including road-trip interview videos featuring K-pop stars. It will also manage Kia on Beat, a digital platform exclusively for global cultural marketing.

According to the ASN Index, Kia is a challenger brand with a mere 0.9% share (~US$20m) for the automobile category since Q216, its total spends(~US$5.7m) in 2018 has taken a dip by almost 30% compared to the previous year despite big-ticket deals with PyeongChang 2018 (~US$2.5m) and the South Korean Baseball team (~US$1.8m). Its latest partnership with YG Entertainment signals a long overdue to tap on the K-pop hype across the world.