How creating a playground for content creators for Hyundai i20 N-Line's launch worked wonders

Last year in September, to position Hyundai’s i20 N-Line as a hip and cool brand among the youth of India, the Hyundai headquarters in Delhi and a studio in Mumbai were converted into a “Creators Arena”, where 40 influencers across genres in each of the cities, were invited under one roof. 

The campaign launched by Innocean Worldwide for Hyundai i20 N-Line was to position the brand as an attitude and not just a brand.

The Creators Arena’s creative cue was taken from the youth’s life, for whom the world is a playground. With adrenaline running through their veins, and a need to stand out in everything they do, the Hyundai i20 N-Line was brought to make the youth’s driving experience and life even more exhilarating. Thus, steering away from the stayed automobile launch tactics, Hyundai created a playground of experiences for spunky content creators.

At the arena, simple ideas were brought to life through high energy, fun-filled activities to seed in the core thought, ‘It’s time to play’. To establish the personality of the car and make the right connection with the young audience, activities were curated based on the DNA of i20 N-Line. A playground in the true sense was created incorporating a rugged, upbeat set, which stood in style exuberating its various playful moods through music zone, where percussion artists collaborated with influencers to create music out of the i20 N-Line car using sensors.

Meanwhile in Mumbai, a set of rap artists created a stylish rap around ‘it’s time to play’! The Creators Arena also had an Art Zone, which was inspired by the massive colourful graffiti art on streets. 

The influencers that were invited posted innovative content on their social media channels from the Creators Arena. These creators eventually drove in huge traffic on Hyundai India Instagram page and established the idea of how the N-Line stands apart from anything else in the Indian auto market. 

After winning several hearts and titles at the pinnacle of global motorsports – the WRC, Hyundai brought the N Line to India in the form of the athletically styled, playful Hyundai i20 N Line. While Hyundai is a premium brand that appeals to a stylish, aspirational buyer, through the i20 N-Line and its attitude it sets out to appeal to the younger audience (Gen Z) as well.

While the unconventional experiences were curated to appeal to youthful influencers, the Hyundai brand essence was kept intact. The experience zones were curated as per the Hyundai brand world and the set designs, graphic language and the complete look and feel was customised to fit the N-Line i20 brand /product language.

The brand’s objective was to achieve maximum reach and engagement with the appropriate audiences who were online. Thus, the agency chose a Phygital medium which allowed them to create compelling experiences to engage with influencers on-ground with the desired ripple effect on digital media. Hyundai believes in leveraging its owned and earned media to the fullest and this activity with its cost-effectiveness and targeted reach was a perfect example of the same. It was evident in the results, that this campaign had a much wider reach and engagement than other stand-alone influencer campaigns. 

The results of the on-ground experiences and engagement at Creators Arena in both the cities helped the brand gain 1,16,58,253 unique content pieces with 29,41,319 engagements on social media. Collaboration with Instagram was optimised, through the creation of i20 N Line stickers, and hashtags that generated engagements in full throttle. 

Case study video:

Credits:

Agency: Innocean Worldwide

Arjun Modayil, Executive Director

Sunny Arora, Assistant Vice-President, Experiential Marketing

Priyanka Dey, Associate Account Director

Smriti Chawla, Associate Vice-President, ATL