The Telluride was Kia's first car designed for the US Market. With the release of the rugged and capable 2024 Kia Telluride SUV, Kia knew it needed to make a lasting impression on young, diverse American drivers.
Connecting with multicultural audiences is crucial for growth, yet many brands stumble due to a lack of data-driven insights and access to cultural insiders.
The game-changer? Kia's partnership with ØPUS, a creative and technology firm that "gets" culture and deep consumer behavior and is augmented with AI tools, insight and analysis. By using our bespoke trained Opus Machine Learning system, a campaign that would typically take months to develop across the team’s language barriers was translated and executed in 2 weeks with all the depth, polish, and precision expected of a national campaign.
By teaming up with ØPUS and utilizing its proprietary AI marketing platform, Kia could identify benchmarks needed to meet its objective of leaving a lasting impression with young, diverse American drivers.
To make a lasting impact, Kia needed to find the perfect combination of tactics and creative to market the Telluride. Opus identified the perfect audience dimensions, secured spokespeople with cultural influence, and connected authentically across social, digital, broadcast, radio, and OOH channels.
ØPUS uncovered key insights for Kia, revealing the NBA's young, diverse fanbase as the best, influential target audience for their Telluride SUV. It also identified NBA star Draymond Green as the perfect spokesperson based on Kia's bespoke criteria, consumer focus, messaging alignment, and authority.
Scoring with Authenticity: Kia's Slam Dunk
ØPUS brought this project to life by identifying the behaviors of audiences and relevant spokespeople to optimize and super-power Kia's marketing campaign. While most companies would balk at utilizing one of the most controversial players on the court, ØPUS perfectly matched the narrative of Draymond's upbringing and life in Saginaw County, Michigan, with the Telluride's style and capabilities. Featuring Draymond Green would leverage his multifaceted public image to create authentic connections with young Black audiences, increasing brand affinity and engagement among this and the broader target demographic.
Leveraging cultural intelligence and our proprietary insights, ØPUS launched a 360º omnichannel offense spanning TV, digital, social, in-arena/OOH, radio, PR, and owned channels. Our AI system has been trained to develop culturally relevant campaigns that integrate deep understanding of audiences, consumer behavior, preferences, and interest affinities with real time speed. ØPUS intelligence provided consumer analysis, sports marketing analysis and marketing strategy — at lower cost on a faster timeline.
At ØPUS, we obsess about the attitudes, interests, and behaviors of communities – going beyond ethnicity and demographics – to achieve true human connection that resonates within and outside of key audiences. Consistent with this methodology, the NBA campaign featured creatives that focused on deep human truths, expressed with cultural fluency, resulting in a “win" with our multidimensional audience.
ØPUS helped to recognize the campaign's broad applicability to a wide variety of audiences, introducing the challenge that creatives also needed to transcend sports.
To ensure the campaign could reach audiences in and out of the NBA's and Draymond Green's fanbases, creatives needed to live at the intersection of multiple themes that would resonate with audiences while heavily featuring the 2024 Kia Telluride SUV and all of its features.
The hero creative "Loose Ball" TVC showed both the rugged and loving side of NBA star Draymond Green, going from a stare-down with a wolf to shooting around with his daughter Olive. The ad incorporated important culturally resonant elements. This authentic portrayal of a caring "Black Dad" struck a chord with Black audiences, young people, families, and sports fans.
To enable further reach and applicability to the campaign, social content featured Mark Phillips of RDCWorld, known for viral NBA skits, acting as Draymond's stunt double in the hilarious "Stunt Dub" series. This exciting collaboration delighted fans and showcased the Telluride SUV's premium features. It contrasted Draymond Green's tough persona with Mark Phillips's light-hearted and fun demeanor.
Taking an omnichannel approach, we amplified the campaign's messaging in NBA arenas and on the radio. Kia reinforced the campaign with "Legends in the Making" messaging, connecting the Telluride with the NBA and WNBA and donating to Draymond Green's youth basketball team in Michigan.
Additionally, the Kia Telluride received multiple organic mentions by "Inside the NBA" show talent, with Draymond revealing that he now drives a Telluride (and recently gifted one to his niece). The earned media mentions took a stellar campaign to the next level, boosting authenticity and awareness.
Kia’s 2023-24 NBA campaign shattered benchmarks and cultural barriers, becoming Kia's highest-performing NBA work ever.
"Loose Ball" TVC outperformed the 12-month category benchmark by 51%.
"Stunt Dub" social media garnered 5.5 million views and 325,000+ likes within a month of launch. Engagement and sentiment soared to new highs for Kia.
This campaign was a success because this moment transformed Kia from an outsider to an MVP in advertising to diverse audiences, successfully tying their product to sports culture and executing a perfect alley-oop between product showcase and cultural relevance.
The campaign was executed through a TV commercial, social content, and digital & in-arena touchpoints. It yielded 74.4 million impressions and 30.7 million content views, far outpacing Kia's average sentiment, view rates, and engagement rates.
Kia didn't just connect with NBA fans and young consumers – they uplifted the culture by lending their platform to Black creator collective RDCWorld and providing a charitable donation to Draymond Green's youth basketball team in Michigan.
Key Executive Quote
“The rugged and capable Kia Telluride took the brand to new heights, all the while besting some of the toughest and most formidable SUVs on the market to become a legend in its own right,” said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing, Kia America. “‘Loose Ball’ is the perfect metaphor to that story with Draymond Green teaching his daughter to become legendary herself, and it was brilliantly brought to life by our new partners at ØPUS.”