Irvine-based Kia Motors America Inc. is looking to play off commercials that have struck a chord with Generation Y.
The automaker, part of South Korea’s Hyundai Kia Automotive Group, is hosting an online video contest where users can emulate hip-hop hamsters from commercials for its Kia Soul crossover vehicle.
The contest, which runs through September, is a play on the latest TV and movie theater ads for the Kia Soul, where oversized, urban hipster hamsters compare the Soul to sad rides—hamster wheels, a toaster, a washing machine and a cardboard box.
The campaign, which debuted last year from El Segundo-based David & Goliath, has been pivotal in the automaker’s bid to sell the boxy Soul to the under-30 crowd.
The Soul has been one of Kia’s top-selling vehicles with 8,020 sold for the year through July, up 39% from a year earlier.
The contest is part of a revival of the hamsters campaign that Kia started in June as the automaker was in between major vehicle launches.
It’s also part of a social media push for Kia that’s designed as much to put the automaker in the minds of young people as to sell vehicles.
Kia is pushing the contest through Internet ads and through Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.
The videos will be judged by YouTube “celebrities” including comedians Smosh, ShayCarl and Lisa Nova.
Semifinalists are set to go through a three-round voting process by viewers.
Kia will post all the videos through the automaker’s YouTube channel.
The winner of the contest will receive $10,000.
Team Mazda Hire
Irvine-based Team Mazda, the ad agency forming to handle work for Irvine-based automaker Mazda North American Operations, has made its first creative hire with Harvey Marco, the former chief creative officer at New York-based JWT.
Marco will serve as chief creative officer at Team Mazda, the shop being created by Britain’s WPP PLC to serve the U.S. arm of Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp.
Team Mazda plans to pull from WPP’s top agencies, including JWT, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Inc., Young & Rubicam Brands Inc., Wunderman, Mindshare North America and Mediaedge:cia.
The agency likely will get half of its staff from existing WPP offices around the country and the other half from within the county.
The shop is expected to open in October with about 100 workers handling Mazda’s $150 million advertising account.
It’s unclear who from WPP’s shops may end up heading to Team Mazda.
Earlier this year, Marco was part of the winning pitch for the Mazda account against the Newport Beach office of Southfield, Mich.-based Doner Co., which had held the account for more than a decade, and a group of shops from New York-based Omnicom Inc.
Marco is expected to leave JWT in September and relocate to Irvine to help build Team Mazda’s creative team.
Sausage Win
Irvine-based Traffik wants to sell more sausages for Los Angeles-based Jody Maroni’s Italian Sausage Kingdom Inc.
The sausage eatery chain, which started in 1979 with a stand in Venice Beach, has about 25 restaurants in California and a half-dozen in other states, mostly in airports and shopping malls.
Jody Maroni’s also sells sausages through its website.
Traffik—a Hispanic ad shop that relocated from Los Angeles earlier this year—landed the sausage chain’s advertising account earlier this month after beating out six other shops.
“They were actually looking for an agency to redevelop their website and e-commerce platform,” said Anthony Trimino, Traffik president. “We came in with an in-store strategy, which we would build into the redevelopment of the website.”
The ad shop is helping redesign eateries with signs, colors and sales training for workers.
Changes are set for the next three months with promotions and advertising campaigns. Website and e-commerce upgrades are expected to follow two months later, according to Trimino.
“We’re focusing on increasing in-store sales first that will lead to online sales,” he said.
The restaurant chain has struggled in the downturn with store closures, little franchisee activity and low online sales of its sausages.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine-based LA Fitness Inc. has signed a long-term media and advertising deal with Montreal-based Zoom Media Inc., which places electronic ads in gyms, bars and other places. LA Fitness, which operates 330 health gyms in 21 states and Canada, plans to display Zoom ads via TV screens … The local operation of Britain’s Experian Group Ltd. has selected its new band after staging an “American Idol”-style search to promote FreeCreditScore.com. The company disbanded its quirky FreeCreditReport.com rock band in favor of The Victorious Secrets out of Detroit. The band is set to premiere at the MTV Video Music Awards in September. The band then is set to be part of a $10 million to $15 million ad campaign, with a series of TV spots from Virginia’s Martin Agency … Huntington Beach-based KOCE-TV landed a Los Angeles area Emmy Award this month thanks to Brenda Brkusic, the station’s channel manager. The public television station earned the award for its “Bloody Thursday” documentary pieces about the Pacific Waterfront Strike of 1934. The show was produced and broadcast on KOCE and later broadcast on other PBS stations around the country.
