Hyundai Motors is creating a huge splash on the automobile industry. They made an aggressive marketing blitz last year to take advantage of the weak Korean currency. The blitz included a string of promotional packages including its “assurance program”, where a buyer can return their cars and cancel their loans without hurting their credit ratings.
And as a result, the company is stepping up its sales pitch with its toughest rivals, Toyota, who incidentally was suffering one of the world’s worst public relations as far as the auto industry is concerned.
The campaign took off last February 7 at the Super Bowl in America. The said advertising campaign will run eight multi-million dollar commercials in CBS Sports, the broadcaster of the 2010 Super Bowl. The aim of the launch is to kick off its 160 million dollar campaign promoting its re-engineered Sonata family sedan.
Meanwhile the car model, Sonata, is actually built in Alabama and obviously would give a good run for Toyota’s Camry, Honda’s Accord, and Ford’s Fusion. The strategy was simple. During an industry slump on 2009, they delivered results – that allowed them to sell 8.3% more units that translates to about 435,000 vehicles. It doubled its net profit to a record 2.5 billion dollar last year, where global market share also rose by 5.2%.
Hyundai seems to be keeping its momentum going. And they seem poised to give giants a good run for their money. But they cannot be too over-confident, and must learn lessons from the Toyota fiasco. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and it would be so hard for them to clean up the mess. They must remember that its not always about promotion and advertising, but quality too.