Kia Decides That It No Longer Wants Its TV Commercials To Be Entertaining
from the um...-why? dept
For a while now, we've been pointing out how, for advertising to be effective, it also needs to be good content that people don't just "not mind" seeing, but which they're willing to actively seek out. It appears that automaker Kia has decided to go with the exact opposite strategy. Reader Brooks writes in to point us to the news that Kia's new marketing director in the US doesn't want people entertained:"We don't want to spend a good chunk of our time in a 30-second spot trying to entertain people."That's part of his plan to move away from a series of rather entertaining commercials that have provided plenty of free advertising for the firm, as people passed them around virally. Apparently, Kia would prefer that no one help them advertise and, indeed, that no one actually watches their ads. Time to think again, Kia. If you want advertising to be effective, it does need to entertain people.
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Filed Under: advertising, cars, content, entertainment
Companies: kia
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Good idea
This should be supplemented by locking out the fast forward function on video recorders during ads. Rewind would be ok, naturally.
That'll boost sales no end.
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not serious
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Re: not serious
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Re: Re: not serious
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Isuzu
Those ads didn't do anything for Isuzu's business.
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Re: Isuzu
How do you conclude that? Just because you didn't buy from them? TV advertising has always been a spray-and-pray process, intended to get your product into the minds of your audience. Most people won't buy a new car just because they see an add, but if they're looking for a new car already, or if they go out to get a new car after being exposed to your product, they're more likely to buy from you (than if they hadn't heard of you). These days people can (and do) skip annoying, invasive ads; we're no longer a captive audience. The same idea applies, though, the trick is just making your ads something people WANT to be exposed to.
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Re: Re: Isuzu
Uh, maybe by the fact Isuzu is no longer in business in the US? Just a thought.
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Re: Re: Re: Isuzu
The original Joe Isuzu commercials ran from 1986-1990, so basing Isuzu's recent performance on ads that ran 18+ years ago makes no sense.
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Kia's Suck Anyway
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Re: Kia's Suck Anyway
Check out JD Powers Owner survey. KIA Spectra is dead even with Toyota Corolla and still cheaper with a better warranty.
I think the point the Marketing director needs to make is they are no longer going to make ineffective funny ads. They need to shake the perception as the car of last resort.
When I bought my wife a Kia I did it almost on accident. We had made up our minds and on the way to the dealership we drove by the crappy looking KIA lot. I had always been curious about their prices and warranty so we decided to test drive. It turns out they are good cars that are well built. I didn't even go look at the other car.
They need advertising that will change peoples ideas enough to get them over the hump of curiosity. At this location specifically they need to spruce up one of the 4 p's - Place.the KIA New Car Lot looks like the oldest junk used car lot in the city. I don't know if that is standard from city-to-city but it would be a turn-off for some. I'm sure that is how they keep prices down somewhat.
In summary: Don't necessarily make ads more serious just make sure brand identity is part of your message and in this case make sure the message is Value - not Price.
Peace!
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Re: Re: Kia's Suck Anyway
Yeah right! With the inferior metals that they use, they're made to accordian pleat at 20mph. Happened to a friend of mine.
So unless you want an engine sitting in your lap, sell that deathtrap!
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Re: Re: Re: Kia's Suck Anyway
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Kia's Suck Anyway
A 3000 pound car going 20mph has a lot of energy. The Mythbusters had a cable with something like 10-15,000 pound breaking point, attached it to a car and drove it off. I think it was going something like 25mph when it just snapped the cable like it was dental floss and kept going. Also, your bumpers are called 5mph bumpers, because any impact faster than that is expected to cause structural damage, even if it hits on the bumper. IMO anecdotal evidence of people surviving horrific crashes, combined with the excellent safety engineering of modern cars makes us forget or deny that there's enough energy in a 20mph crash to kill.
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Not a bad idea
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Why advertise at all?
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Kiass my .... :-)
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Re:
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Re: mac ads
Here's what I get from those ads: PCs suck. Macs are cool.
Now, I haven't been told WHY Macs are so cool - I just have to trust them.
Yep, really informative.
I have to wonder when a company's primary advertising consists of telling people that the competition sucks, without telling them why your product is good.
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on the other hand...
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legitimate argument...
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KIA's Better than GM/Ford/Chrysler crap...
As for commercial: they still have TV? You watch it? Talk about a luddite.
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You mean as people infringed their copyright?????????
They can't have that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaYNnNHkVew
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Kia
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Kia Decides That It No Longer Wants Its TV Commercials To Be Entertaining
Not only did they "try harder by putting out a great line of cars this year, they have a sense of humor - the ads are quirky. Take for instance, the recent campaign of electric guitar w/ every car - Can't figure the connection but you can say the same about the drivers - except for one thing:
FAST, FASTER... & interesting.
You can drive those KIAs right to the junk yard the day you buy them - that is, if the one you're driving makes it even that far.
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Kia...?
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But still...
DS
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Are we missing context?
However, Are we missing the context here? One translation of that quote may be that they are moving on to more immersive, longer, forms of advertising.
But, it is hard to tell from that one quote.
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Re-think the whole concept of advertising
Example: one of my favorite web sites has now decided that I need to be forced to sit through an ad for classmates.com for some unspecified period of time before I get to read the article I want. This serves absolutely no (positive) purpose either to me, the site, or to the advertiser. I already know all I need to know about classmates.com. Forcing me to see an ad will not increase my knowledge of classmates.com, but it will make me view it in an (even more) unfavorable light than I do now, thus strengthening my resolve to never do business with them. The anger also spills over onto the web site that hosts the annoying ad, so all three parties come away worse than they were before.
The TV and radio ads for ********* *****, a local car dealer with famously annoying ads, are dealt with the same way: I strengthen my resolve to never do business with the advertiser, and I change the channel, to punish the broadcaster who distributes them.
Both of these advertisers seem to think that they need to get my attention, but they're wrong. They have my attention, at the start, but they instantly drive me from paying attention to long lasting, festering hatred, with a desire to retaliate by taking by eyeballs and ears somewhere else, preferably someplace where I will never see them again. It wouldn't help if their ads were more entertaining, because no matter how entertaining the ads were at first glance, they would very quickly grow old.
It's not that I hate advertising. My favorite part of the Sunday paper is the ad inserts. I pull out the ones I'm interested in, and pore over them to see what's on sale, if there are any products I hadn't heard of before, what does a certain store carry. I love those. I hate the flap they put over the comics section, the one I have to carefully tear off and discard (and vow not to do business with that advertiser) before I can read the funnies.
Sponsoring valuable content in an unobtrusive way is is the best that anyone has yet come up with. At least I hear that they exist, if only for a few seconds, and it doesn't incite me to retaliate against them and the communications channel. With the internet I can go find out all the details I want, once I'm motivated to look. Assuming that they are smart enough to have a usable and informative web site.
Product placement has the same negative effects. It's distracting, and makes me more suspicious of the content producer. It creates a negative aura around everything, forcing me to raise the sensitivity knob on my bullshit detector, which detracts from the whole experience.
Far better, however, if the advertisers can figure out how to give me something I want that will see why their product is good. I'll pay attention to their ad as they're doing something useful for me.
How's this for an ad: a slide show of the products, maybe with a summary of characteristics, played silently. That would really catch some attention. At least I woundn't have to mute it.
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business
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Kia commercials
Hopefully, your commercial writers will still be able to capture an audience that in this day and age, have a sense of humor.
Sincerely,
Gay Siegman
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complanints abouty KIA tv ads
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