It has
been one year since Hyundai began
leasing a small number of Tucson Fuel Cell crossovers in
Southern California. Now the automaker is taking to the Web to tout the 70
customers who got the vehicles, and how the vehicles fit into their daily
lives. The message: fuel-cell vehicles that emit only water vapor are in
today-land.
The
video series plays on the idea that the people who got the keys and drive the Tucson Fuel
Cell crossovers for a year are real-life superheroes. To be sure, all of them
are achievers — doctors, philanthropists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in green
business. But Hyundai
agency of record Innocean U.S.A. gives each of the eight owners in the “Day in
the Life of a Fuel Cell Family” the comic-book treatment as well, with names
like “Alter-Eco,” “Recyclor,” “Hydrofox,” and “Mother Nurture,” and visual
representations by established comic book artists.
The
content is centered on a microsite for the vehicle, housing videos showing the
owners doing everyday tasks — commuting, softball practice, Starbucks — and
also recreational jaunts. One video on Carolyn Rowley (“Mother Nurture”) gets
into how she started an orphanage in Kenya, and was awarded California’s Best
Sustainable Garden; Another, “Blue Lightning,” is an engineer who does
green-field startups in Mexico and Brazil.
How far
have people driven the vehicle? According to Hyundai, as of this week the
70 drivers have collectively accumulated enough miles in the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell cars to
reach the lunar surface and return, around 477,800 miles. Refueling time is
similar to gasoline vehicles of same size. Hyundai started building the
vehicle in February 2013 at the Ulsan, Korea, assembly plant that makes the
gasoline version.
David
Matathia, director of marketing communications at Hyundai Motor America, tells
Marketing Daily that the digital campaign and the program it highlights are big
statements for the brand. “To be the first auto with the first true retail fuel
cell vehicle means we are not just talking about what the future may hold. It’s
here now, and we want to demystify fuel-cell technology, and show that these
are viable.”
He adds
that there is a tight correlation between technology and innovation, and
opinion and consideration of a brand. “To be trying a first with something as
advanced as this is really a great story for us … people either don't know
about it or are skeptical, so this is about removing that shroud of mystery,
and saying this is real.”
Matathia
says promotional elements are focused on social media, and CRM outreach as well
both through its database and in a monthly e-magazine to owners. “It's
obviously a targeted effort.” Innocean, he says, “was the force behind
profiling these people and celebrating them as pioneers. We worked with
renounced artists to re-imagine them but it's who they are, how they live.”
The
vehicle is pretty much like the production Tucson
crossover -- and, Joyce notes, there is only about an inch snipped out of the
rear cargo area space to accommodate the hydrogen storage units powering the
fuel stack. “In the videos you see that it isn't some crazy-looking futuristic
car — it's a Tucson —
and people putting kids' stuff in back, commuting as normal people do.” He adds
that Hyundai is tracking
effectiveness by measuring traffic, and collecting hand-raisers.
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