Street cred is the name of Kia’s new game, and if you’re like me, after seeing their recent campaign, you were probably left wondering “what’s the song from that Kia hamster commercial?”
For a little over a year now Kia’s lightweight compact SUV box thing has been making in-roads into the urban compact car market.
For a company that originally made me make barfing noises, they have come a long way, and they’ve done this in part, by embracing the young up and coming creative class in a way that is playful and not too “try-hard.”
Thanks to some ingenious work from their ad agency David and Goliath, Kia has been very successful with solid sales of the Soul model, which launched for the 2010 model year.
It’s hard not to like the car. It’s unique, affordable, funky, and is sold by hamsters. I mean really, how could you not?
The original Hamster Ad featured a city full of hamster wheels that is shaken up by the new looks of the new Kia Soul — also driven by hamsters. The metaphor is great, the tunes are catchy, and the hamsters are just plain cool.
Kia even hired Staple Design, the New York creative agency responsible for the Nike Pigeon Dunk craze, to create a couple of custom Kia Souls to show off around the city.
The most recent ad campaign brings back the hamsters to “kick it old school” Brooklyn style with the hamsters all hip-hop clad and pumping “The Choice is Yours” by the Black Sheep c.1992.
The whole thing is rather infectious, and there is a very good chance I will rush out and buy a Kia Soul after writing this.
Go hamster go!
