The Walt Disney Firm has chosen Hyundai as the primary official model accomplice and unique automotive sponsor of its upcoming one hundredth anniversary celebrations, marking the newest step within the more and more pleasant relationship between the leisure large and the South Korean automaker.
With the deal locked in, Hyundai is gearing as much as launch a world advert blitz in 2023 that may embrace new campaigns, authentic content material launches, experiential activations, in addition to merchandising and social extensions linked to the Disney identify and its mental property.
Hyundai and its companies are at the moment nailing down the logistics of a number of “main chapters” in its year-long partnership with Disney, though it’s nonetheless in its “early days,” emphasised Angela Zepeda, chief advertising officer of Hyundai Motor America, who signed on as CMO three years in the past after a stint as an government at Innocean, Hyundai’s company of document. “It’ll be a 12 months’s value of labor popping out with them. We’re working by way of that artistic course of proper now.”
These “chapters” will finally culminate “within the final celebration of the anniversary date within the fall of 2023,” mentioned Zepeda, who declined to supply additional particulars.
Disney’s one hundredth birthday will formally be celebrated on Oct. 16, 2023, a century after Walt Disney and his older brother Roy first established the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles in 1923.
Robust promoting selections
As soon as a Tremendous Bowl stalwart that aired a business in nearly each sport within the 2010s, Hyundai — the primary automobile model to ever win USA At the moment’s Tremendous Bowl Advert Meter with its “First Date” spot in 2016 — has since shifted its promoting priorities away from the so-called Large Recreation.
The corporate has chosen to sit down out the sport for the previous two years, and can once more be absent from Tremendous Bowl LVII when it happens in February 2023.
“As a CMO, it’s nonetheless the largest platform of the day. However the automobile business remains to be fragile in a number of methods,” mentioned Zepeda, suggesting that whereas Hyundai needs to undertake “large issues” as a part of its yearlong Disney sponsorship deal, selecting and selecting which tentpoles to give attention to “are powerful selections with the corporate’s CEO and monetary staff.” Advert shopping for patterns for auto manufacturers have been disrupted by provide chain points, inflicting stock challenges.
Nevertheless, the corporate is “going to make extra funding across the Tremendous Bowl” within the new 12 months as a part of the Disney100 partnership, together with by airing spots within the American and Nationwide Soccer Convention playoff video games in January, mentioned Zepeda.
“We want to have one or two tentpoles as a part of the partnership, I simply don’t know but what they’re. I feel we’ll have some large information, nevertheless it’s too early,” she mentioned.
Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of advert gross sales, estimates that Disney shall be able to reveal extra particulars about its one hundredth anniversary model efforts by early December, each with Hyundai and different yet-to-be-announced companions.
“We’re wanting throughout all the main verticals. I feel once you see the listing, you’re going to see a number of the plain classes of individuals we work with usually round large packages,” Ferro mentioned.
Working collectively as soon as once more
The Disney100 partnership is one other stepping stone within the relationship between the leisure powerhouse and the South Korea-based automobile firm.
Hyundai has “been a rare accomplice with ours for quite a lot of years,” mentioned Ferro, including that “as quickly as Angela got here in [as Hyundai CMO], the evolution of our partnership actually modified.”
On the heels of crossovers reminiscent of a 2018 advert that used “Ant-Man and The Wasp” to hype the three-door Hyundai Veloster, the 2 corporations labored collectively final 12 months on the automaker’s “Query Every part” marketing campaign, a multi-pronged effort to advertise the redesigned 2022 Tucson SUV that represented the single-largest advertising push in Hyundai’s historical past.
That marketing campaign, dealt with by Innocean and Hyundai’s media company Canvas, noticed a string of commercials starring celebrities reminiscent of actor Jason Bateman {and professional} basketball participant Kawhi Leonard. It additionally included tie-ins with quite a lot of Disney-owned properties together with Fox’s “Masked Singer” and ESPN’s “30 for 30,” in addition to a centerpiece extension in mid-2021 that featured a solid of Marvel Cinematic Universe characters.
Disney has “simply been a extremely good artistic collaborator, not simply placing the Tucson in as, like, a product placement,” Zepeda mentioned of the corporate’s “Query Every part” marketing campaign, which benefited from a first-of-its-kind use of built-in Mouse Home IP inside its advertisements. “It was vastly profitable for us, it actually was,” she mentioned.
“After we began speaking, in Cannes, about what spherical two of this partnership seems to be like, we instantly considered Disney100. We’re tremendous excited as a result of it’s actually going to be broad and expansive, similar to it was on the primary ‘Query Every part’ marketing campaign,” Ferro mentioned.
Earlier this 12 months, Hyundai served because the shopper in an episode of the ABC sitcom “Black-ish” wherein star Anthony Anderson, who performs an company government named Andre Johnson, works on a fictional Tremendous Bowl business for the corporate’s then-new Ioniq 5 electrical automobile. (Hyundai sat out the real-life 2022 Tremendous Bowl, which came about roughly a month after the episode aired.)
The automaker additionally collaborated with Nationwide Geographic, which has a number of business entities collectively owned by the Walt Disney Firm, to create Exterior Academy, an internet augmented actuality hub that lets customers just about discover three U.S. nationwide parks.