Hyundai marketing
boss: We’re not just
a ‘left-brain choice’
Steve Shannon is putting brand above specific
car models with emotion-rich advertising
■ BY JULIE HALPERT adageeditor@adage.com
TWO WEEKS INTO his post as VP-marketing for Hyundai Motor America,
Steve Shannon scrapped a campaign
that had been developed by its agency,
Innocean, for the 2012 Veloster. “I
thought we could do better,” he told Ad
Age.
Mr. Shannon believed the work
lacked the “connective tissue” that ties
a campaign together. It included no TV
spots, a crucial outreach effort for a car
that Hyundai hopes will reach mass
volumes. So he developed an idea of
15-second spots to capture the short
attention span of Gen Y buyers that
each emphasized one different feature
of the car (which includes a front-seat
screen to watch movies and the ability
to play Xbox—see story, P. 27).
Hyundai is focused on ads that
don’t just support the Accent or
the Sonata. Said Mr. Shannon:
“Products won’t always be this
hot, so it’s important to develop a
strong Hyundai brand.”
CATCHING UP WITH ADLAND
OVER COFFEES AND COCKTAILS
Advertising Week attendees from Twitter, Condé Nast,
Kraft,L’Oréal,Coca-Cola and agencies share predictions
BY AD AGE STAFF
BY MOVING Advertising Week so it
would no longer coincide with the UN
General Assembly, there were fewer
logistical headaches than in the past.
Attendees could find Manhattan hotel
rooms for under $900 a night and didn’t have to grapple with street closures.
But the affair, now in its eighth year,
remained too exhausting in terms of
number of events and too short on
fresh thinking. A lot of it was the same
old, same old.
Since it’s less about what’s said during panel discussions than what’s said
over coffee and cocktails, Ad Age staff
decided to use the week’s meetings
with top execs as a chance to take a
temperature check: How is the lack of
confidence in the economy affecting
marketers’ plans for 2012, and how are
agencies behaving accordingly?
“Marketers are reacting to the cur-
rent economic uncertainty the same
way consumers are,” said Zain Raj,
president-CEO at the SolutionSet
MediaWhiz Partnership. “They’re
managing their current spending con-
servatively while adopting a wait-and-
see attitude on making aggressive
investments. Unlike the last recession,
which was caused by consumer fear
that quickly infected marketers and
caused a lot of knee-jerk reactions, the
feeling right now is more akin to a low-
grade fever that refuses to go away.”
Most marketers say there is no
pressure to slash marketing budgets.
But budgets aren’t rising, either.
DRIVING
VALUE
Coca-Cola CMO
Joe Tripodi says
the beverage
giant is looking
for ways to
bundle
beverages with
food.
See ADVERTISING WEEK on Page 29
AD AGE’S BEST PLACES TO WORK
Ad Age took over the Best Buy Theater (and its marquee) last week to celebrate the
marketing and media industry’s best employers at its first Best Places to Work celebration.
Want to
be in the
running
for next
year’s
winners?
AdAge.com/
BestPlaces
(Top) Lee Nadler, Celeste Gudas
and Stuart Koegel of 24/7; (bottom)
digital agency 360i accepts its award.
Winning top honors was Allen & Gerritsen, a Boston-based
firm that practices “reverse mentoring,” hosts monthly ask-the-boss lunches and offers employees free (healthful) breakfasts.
