Mumbai: A bit of a context on where we are. Hyundai in India has been a strong number to play over the last 25 years, we’ve been pioneering and doing a lot of new-age innovations in our cars, not only from a design point of view, making them more and more futuristic or cutting edge, but also getting in features and technologies that have wowed the Indian consumers. One of the biggest mantras that we ever had, is getting newer and newer, passive and active customer safety features in our cars. That could be the connected SUV we launched in 2019. That could be some of the new-age safety features we launched in the Creta in 2020. It’s coming in a lot of cars starting last year and coming into two more cars this year. But the aim ultimately is safety for all or democratizing safety across all 13 models of Hyundai in India. And I think the inflexion point came on the first of October this year when we took the bold and I think very progressive step of standardizing six airbags on 13 cars, each and every version that will be produced in India after the first of October. Also, at the same time, our flagship sedan the Hyundai Verna got a five-star global ncap safety rating, making it the safest sedan in the country. So, I think safety is one of the most important key buying factors for car consumers in India. Such progressive proactive steps actually give us the right positioning for the consumer to not only consider but also consume our product. So, it’s a good point, marketing came around and made a colloquial, nice campaign around it that not only touched. people from a World Cup point of view, but also ‘6 hai toh safe hai’, if it is six and it is a very simple USP that we have gone across mediums in our large campaign from the first of October.

Indiantelivision.com in conversation with Hyundai Motor India Ltd  AVP & vertical head, marketing Virat Khullar.

Edited Excepts:

On conceptualising and strategising this campaign ‘6 hai tho safe hai’

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We have actually gone on TV, digital and print, these are the three mediums that we chose on TV. It’s the largest chunk of our media mix that also covers other entertainment and news across the country We are principal partners on KBC and BIGG BOSS. For the ICC World Cup, we have taken CTV because that is a nice niche, premium audience that you can get at with high frequency and good recall. We’ve taken CTV on the ICC World Cup on digital, it is a strong top funnel and a performance running for about 45 days on the first week of October, including some impact takeovers that we’ve done on the print campaign. we have done some interesting strategic placements, we have taken the day after the India match, which is the sports page of the key dailies.

So, when the sports page covers the glorious stuff that India has done the previous night, we’ve got a half page below that says ‘6 Hai tho safe hai” and it’s very interesting. I would not say we have gone above a threshold, but we have gone on a threshold on TG and reached across three mediums and very decent recall coming at our showrooms as we speak. So, this is kind of envisaged result of the campaign making it more topical on cricket but running it across key mediums for us.

Was it that really thought-out strategy key and launched just as the World Cup was started

So, it’s both sides. It was supposed to be launched on the first of October; the World Cup was coming on the fifth of October. So, it was a coincidence that we came to know three months in advance, I would not say I came to know a month in advance. Around that time, we started to basically try to make it as topical as possible. Cricket will last 45 days it will not last beyond that. But in these 14 days, can we have a first-mover advantage and make it a very high recall campaign? So yes, the campaign was definitely strategized to make it as simple as to bring a smile to the consumer’s face and relate to what we are trying to say.

Any chances of making any more made-in-India vehicles for the Indian market

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All our cars obviously are produced here, the Hyundai Verna was the first made-in-India product to get a global rating. That’s what happened on the first of October when the five-star adult and child safety occupant rating came for the first time on a Hyundai India-made car. That’s the only difference. But obviously, we have produced and manufactured 13 models from the country for more than 25 years.

On the current post-pandemic automobile market, the types of cars are most popular and are electric vehicles gaining prominence over traditional petrol and diesel cars

So it’s not correct for me to talk about the overall industry but what is important for us is that we’ve got the World Car of the Year 2022 Ionicq 5, which we launched in December last year, and basically brought to the market at the Delhi Motor Show in January 2023 This year we have got a very exciting response, it is the top of the line marquee product for us and the most expensive product in our portfolio, we have got a very strong consumer response, we’ve got a new segment of consumers coming in buying the product.

So, from our portfolio point of view, the Ioniq 5 which is one of our marquee, EV products, also has one of the most advanced features from low technology charging capabilities in less than 20 minutes range above 550 to 600 km. So, these kinds of full electric benefits Hyundai launched with Ioniq 5 in January this year. So, we are very happy with the response that we have got on the right product for India. I would not be able to comment overall on the EV market. But yes, for us the Ioniq 5 stories are a very bright spot by entering the right car at the right time in the Indian market.

On seeing a rise in car buying or vehicle buying post the pandemic

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Yes, there is a very strong uptake in the overall industry post-pandemic there is no doubt about that. The market overall remains robust with almost eight to nine percent growth even this year. So, from that point of view, there is a good amount of consumption happening across the industry. Hyundai has also been doing very well on some of its marquee products like the Hyundai Creta, Hyundai Venue and even the Hyundai Verna. So, we are seeing stronger consumer consumption of fully loaded products also. So, things like automatic transmissions things like sunroofs are becoming a much higher percentage of our vehicle sales, which means that the consumer is looking at something beyond basic mobility they are looking at connected cars. We launched the first connected product in the middle of 2019 and they now have more than 4.2 lakh connected cars on the Indian roads which is the largest vehicle park since that time. So that means the adoption of a lot more features is coming in by the New Age Indian consumer, which is a very interesting trend that we are seeing from our product point of view.

On whether TV and digital help you reach a larger audience

Yes, today we are looking at TV helping us reach a larger audience. Some of the reach that is getting delivered by GEC specifically, is a large audience no doubt. But yes, we cannot ignore the ecosystems of CTV we cannot ignore the ecosystem of digital reach. But for us, TV is still the prime medium and we are getting a good resonance and reach coming from our TV buyers.

On your idea of an ideal mix of your marketing spent

We are looking at all our campaigns as being at least TV plus digital. The addition of a print or an outdoor comes depends on the scale of the campaign, but we will definitely have TV plus digital. In the very recent past we have done digital-only launches for the Hyundai Venue, we launched with a, very strong digital-only plan that has also had very decent success when the car was launched. It is a TV plus digital plan.

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Digital today in the overall mix for my media is 29 to 30 per cent for this year. That is a strong number because we are still in a very high involvement category. Our spends on digital are very strongly top funnel and a little bit lesser on the bottom funnel. But, it’s a 29 to 30 per cent mix for this year. All plans are TV plus digital because we target different kinds of TGS and different kinds of frequencies on both sides. But it is obviously an integrated plan. But the aim is what will be the kind of property we will take on OTT, CTV and TV is something that is programmed based on the product we are launching, on the budget of the product that we are launching. But yes, it will remain TV plus digital always.

On the ROI on this campaign and reason behind choosing celebrities. So what is it to get more eyeballs into the campaign

I will take the second part of your question first, so from a celebrity point of view, we have brand ambassadors, but the ‘6 hai to safe hai’ campaign did not have brand ambassadors on mainline media. We took the support of Smriti, Jemimah, and Shafali who are the woman cricketers on their social feeds, specifically, but if you see the three TVCs it does not feature our brand ambassadors. We’ve gone strongly with the message and strongly with the topicality of cricket. From an ROI point of view without giving very specific numbers, I can only tell you that the click-throughs that we have got on this campaign or one of the highest. What is important to note is the positive sentiment, we measure positive sentiment through online reputation management. Due to the nature of the action, proactively standardizing safety on all our cars. We have got very good positive sentiment across social platforms. That simply means that the engagement is one of the highest on a corporate campaign we have seen so far.

A. Driving marketing metrics. It is giving me the returns on the campaign objectives you have taken.

B. It is driving conversations in showrooms.

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It’s a good full-funnel impact that we see so far. In our highly cluttered market to have a campaign getting a full funnel response is very, very exciting. So yeah, you believe a simple message in a topical environment has given us good returns so far.

As you said safety is been the prime importance for all your vehicles, how does it resonate with your consumers

Safety, as I said in the beginning is one of the key bind factors for cars in India. This proactive announcement made by us over the new HP features on safety we have been launching on our cars actually just adds to the image of the brand in the country. My brand help metrics and my online monitoring tell me that being a safer car manufacturer across the range, democratizing Safety for all is actually adding a very good, positive sheen to the brand as, as I’m speaking right now because we are actually monitoring it on a week-to-week basis. You’re absolutely right, it has been 25 days into the campaign. I think a very strong action taken by the brand, and then the campaign delivering have a very strong reach and engagement to what you wanted to do. So yes, it’s exciting times. We had a very big launch in June and July with the extra new segment and the car is doing very well for us. We had the top-of-the-line, EV coming in January, which has given us some very positive cues on the EV side of things. And with the safety story getting an inflexion point on the first of October. We are in the right space from a consumer mind point of view.