A Case Study of Hyundai Motors: Live Brilliant Campaign for Modern Premium Brand

Abstract

As more companies become interested in global markets, it has become crucial for firms to create globalized brands whose positioning, advertising strategy, personality, looks, and feel are consistent across nations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the global branding strategy of the Hyundai Motor Company (hereafter HMC) in order to show how the company processes its branding strategy. HMC, one of the leading global companies in the automobile industry, set up its brand identity as “Modern premium”, in alignment with their new slogan “New Thinking New Possibilities”, in 2011. The aim of the “Modern premium” concept was to provide consumers with new experiences and values beyond their expectations. HMC wanted their consumers to think of their cars as not only a medium of transportation but as a life space, where they can share experiences alongside HMC. In an effort to conduct consumer research in 5 different nations, HMC selected “brilliant” as a key communication concept. The word “brilliant” expresses the functional, experiential, and emotional dimensions of HMC. HMC furthermore chose “live brilliant” as a key campaign message in order to reinforce their communication concept. After this decision, the “live brilliant” campaign was exhibited through major broadcast channels around the world. The campaign was the company’s first worldwide brand campaign, where a single message was applied to all major markets, with the goal of building up a consistent image as a global brand. This global branding strategy is worth examining due to its significant contribution to growth generation in the global market. Overall, the ‘live brilliant’ global brand campaign not only improved HMC’s reputation image-wise, with the ‘Modern Premium’ conceptualization of the brand as ‘simple’, ‘creative’ and ‘caring’, but also improved the consumer’s familiarity, preference and purchase intention of HMC. In fact, the “live brilliant” campaign was a successful campaign which increased HMC’s brand value. Notably, HMC’s brand value increased continuously and reached 9 billion US dollars in 2013, leading it to reach 43rd place in the Global Brand Rankings according to the brand consulting group Interbrand. Its brand value largely surpassed that of Nissan (65th) and Chevrolet (89th) in 2013. While it is true that the global branding strategy of HMC involved higher risks, it was highly successful according to cross-nation consumer research. Therefore, this paper concludes that the global branding strategy of HMC made a positive impact on its performance. We further suggest HMC to combine its successful marketing with social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and embrace digital media by extending its brand communication horizon to the mobile internet