Costa Mesa-based Hyundai Motor America Inc. beat some of its competitors in a recent track test and is using the opportunity to express condolences through sympathy cards created by Hyundai’s advertising agency, Innocean Worldwide.
Huntington Beach-based Innocean designed four pull-out sympathy cards to spotlight results showing the Hyundai Genesis Coupe R-Spec beating out performance rivals, including the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang, Infiniti G37 and Dodge Challenger.
The front of the card says “With Deepest Sympathy” and contains the inner message “Sorry competition, nothing personal.” The back of the card contains the lap time results of the Genesis and its competitors at track tests conducted by Automotive Marketing Consultants Inc.
AMCI, which is based in China with operations in the U.S. and Europe, was retained by Hyundai Motor America to test the cars.Â
Hyundai’s promotional cards are inserted in the December issues of enthusiast magazines, including Automobile, Car and Driver, Road & Track, and Autoweek. Innocean also created digital versions of the ads for the magazines’ iPad magazine editions, featuring music tracks and additional images.
Hyundai spent almost $560 million in U.S. advertising last year, according to an Ad Age estimate.
The Business Journal estimates Innocean had $309 million in 2011 capitalized billings and 150 employees in OC.
Charity Initiative
Santa Ana-based Orange County Register plans to roll out a new initiative on Dec. 3 to advance new publisher Aaron Kushner’s mission to connect better with Orange County readers and local needs.
The Register will introduce a new program that aims to support local nonprofits by providing them free advertising in the newspaper. The Register will donate up to $12.4 million in advertising space to nonprofits through a subscriber-based program.
The amount of free advertising depends on the percentage of subscribers who participate.
The Register will mail $100 gift vouchers to its seven-day subscribers. Subscribers can designate which nonprofits in OC they would like to donate the money to.
Other changes at the Register are also in the works. Beginning Nov. 29, the Register said it plans to expand content and revamp design within its 25 newspapers targeted to different cities within OC. It also plans to use the Register’s standard broadsheet format instead of the tabloid format it has used in the past.
The Register is owned by Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., which was acquired by Boston-based investor group 2100 Trust LLC in July. The newspaper has 869 employees at its Santa Ana office.
New Client
Huntington Beach-based media planning and buying firm Ocean Media LLC has added New York-based discount online retailer Gilt Groupe Inc. as a client.
Ocean Media will manage Gilt’s first TV advertising campaign and has bought TV spots currently airing through December on a variety of cable networks such as Style, HGTV, E! Entertainment Television, Oxygen, Lifetime and TLC.Â
New York-based advertising agency Berlin Cameron United, a unit of WPP, is in charge of the campaign’s creative.
The Business Journal estimated Ocean Media had $265 million in revenue for the 12 months through June. It has 70 employees in OC.
Social Strategies
Among recent promotions using social media:
• Anaheim-based clothing retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. asked fans to post photos from its holiday catalog to its Instagram profile for a chance to win a trip to Los Angeles to attend the company’s annual holiday party.
• Fullerton-based Yokohama Tire Corp. did a Facebook giveaway for free tickets to the Los Angeles Auto Show. The first 100 people to fill out a form via Facebook were awarded a free pack of four tickets each.
