A bombshell from Kia: Lady Gaga, Twitter, YouTube, Shazam and the VMAs

Kia has produced one of the year’s most memorable adverts, and with the use of Lady Gaga, Twitter, the VMAs and Shazam, the brand looks set for some great ‘traction’.

The advert featuring Lady Gaga’s new single, Applause, and a handful of America’s Next Top Model cast members premiered during the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) show on 25th of August, racking up 10.1m live viewers.

The Kia Soul demographic fits well with that of the VMAs. With many first-time drivers tuning in, the moderately priced and trendy car was a hit, as seen by some of the many tweets.

By David Olshanetsky August 29th 2013 16:41

YouTube

On YouTube, the video has nearly reached 1m views.

Expect this number to continue to rise dramatically riding the song’s popularity.

Given that previous Kia adverts have been as uninspired and as, frankly hateable, and unviewed (33,000 views on YouTube) as this one, this is quite a turn up for Kia.

See if you can ever listen to the Buzzcocks again…

Gaga and Twitter

Using Gaga’s Twitter which has almost 40m followers, Kia posted a cryptic message reading ‘This is exactly my hip rehab gym routine’ followed by a Tiny URL link to the Kia YouTube Channel page above, with the advert featured on page prominently.

Shazam

iPhone application Shazam was also involved with the ad, with a scan of the song providing a link to the advert in addition to the song information.

Shazam intergration with adverts is not the first of its kind but this Kia advert was the first that I’ve seen work properly. Often the ad length and second degree noise precludes the ap working quickly and efficiently, but not with Kia’s piece.

The total cost of the advert is not yet known, but the air-time and Gaga hook-up alone, before even making the video, marks an expensive new direction for Kia ads.

Will Kia see a return on its investment on this campaign? Will it prove that spending good money on creative and involving serious social celebrity action is about as surefire as it gets? Let us know below…

Econsultancy’s Punch event is where ‘Marketing meets Creative in the age of data and insight’. Curated by Creative Review, this event showcases the best of insight-driven creative. This event forms part of our week-long Festival of Marketing extravaganza.

Article Customer Experience

Customer service: the move to ‘help yourself’

In this post I’ll be looking at the growing importance of self-service. I’ll look at some brands that do it well, and some that don’t, and offer advice as to what self-service entails.

Research recently carried out by Zendesk indicates that over 50% of customers want self-service and 67% prefer self-service to speaking to someone.

Combine this with the fact that self-service is cheaper than web chat, which itself is significantly cheaper than a running a call centre, and it’s definitely a trend we’ll see continue online.

Instagram: nine different ways to market your brand

Photo-sharing app Instagram has long since left its hipster roots behind and is now a social network for the masses, which inevitably means that marketers are looking at ways to exploit its popularity.

According to the platform’s own statistics, Instagram’s 130 million active users share 45 million photos every day so there’s plenty of opportunity to gain brand exposure.

We’ve previously looked at nine brands making good use of Instagram and four others rocking the app’s new video feature.

And on that theme, here are nine ways in which brands can use Instagram for marketing…

Article Strategy

The secret to productive, happy and creative digital workers

With the explosion of the digital economy, the best digital professionals are much in demand and expensive.

How then do you retain good staff and ensure you get the best return on investment?

Article Ecommerce

China’s internet report shows growth in bite-size video and live commerce

In March, the China Internet Network Information Centre (or CNNIC) released the 53rd Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development Status: a comprehensive twice-yearly snapshot of digital life in China. Covering everything from device usage to China’s rural internet population, livestreaming growth to online ride-hailing, the report delves into the major trends shaping China’s internet landscape […]

Article Ecommerce

What exactly is AI-powered commerce search and what does it mean for retailers?

We’ve seen lots of examples of new intelligent search features or conversational agents in the last six months in online retail – from Walmart, Instacart and Amazon, for example. In a recent article, I tried out some AI-powered product discovery features to see how useful they might be for shoppers. And though they each provided distinctive […]

1

Article Innovation and Trends

14 examples of augmented reality brand experiences

Augmented reality has surged in the headlines of late with the release of Apple’s Vision Pro headset and Meta teasing a potential rollout of AR glasses as it marks the 10-year anniversary of its VR/AR outfit, Meta Reality Labs. If augmented reality headsets and eyewear become more commonplace, brands and entertainment companies may take the […]

Article Privacy and data protection

Retailers’ guardrails for generative AI need to match up to their level of investment

A joint report from Salesforce and the Retail AI Council suggests widespread retailer investment in generative AI – but a lack of structure and guardrails to ensure it is used effectively and above all, ethically.

Comments

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.