Rappin' Rodents that Got Soul

Effective advertising grabs your attention, keeps it, and is memorable. Generally in today’s climate, really great advertising does more than spur sales; it drives customers to the advertiser’s social media site(s) and/or goes viral on the web.

That’s exactly what happened with Kia’s Soul: A New Way to Roll campaign. Kia has been using hamsters as spokes-animals (to steal Frontier Airlines’ term) for quite some time. The Kia Soul is designed to compete with econo-boxes (i.e. Scion, Nissan Cube) that appeal to the younger crowd. In May 2010 Kia’s ad agency David and Goliath launched the “You can go with this or you can go with that” commercial to much fanfare and, eventually, industry awards. 

I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I was shopping for a new car this week when I came across this ad on the internet. It’s a YouTube sensation with several million views. The Kia Soul Hamsters—rather Souly Hamsters—have a loyal following on their Facebook pages and the Kia Soul product page has plenty of “likes.” People are even gluing stuffed hamsters to Soul’s dashboards.

This commercial got my attention all right. You expect hamsters to be cute, cudely. They should have a voice like a high-speed audio dub (i.e. Alvin and the Chipmunks). Go ahead and blast me as being racist on this one: I think societal norms expect hamsters to be, ummm, white.

The hand-grabby-huggy. What is this gesture supposed to be called?

When the deep bass beat started and the hamsters threw back their hoodies to reveal the bling and gold chains beneath, I knew this was a new type of hamster. More like rapping rodents. Gansta gerbils. With startlingly life-like animation and movements, the city of Hamsterdam comes to life and hip-hop hamsters belt out early-90s single “The Choice is Yours” by Black Sheep. They even do that weird hand-grabby-half-huggy thing common in gangsta circles while others are pictured playing street ball. Maybe the creative team at David and Goliath was a bit racist, stereotyping perhaps.

This ad stuck with me, but since I’m not a fan of hip hop, it wasn’t in a good way. I contacted the hamsters on Facebook to see what kind of incentives they might have for first time Kia customers. Facebook incentives are a popular marketing tool today. They were prompt in responding, but only directed me to Kia.com—nothing I couldn’t have done on my own.

So about that memorable ad, I think the concept worked well.  It met all the criteria for breaking through the clutter, being remembered, and going viral.  From an advertising and marketing standpoint, Kia's krew did a great job.  But how did it work for me? I went with a 2011 Subaru Impreza over the Kia Soul. I liked the Soul. Especially in the “Sport” trim it had a lot of cool factor to it. But in the end Soul's thrashy 2.0L four cylinder plus Subaru loyalty incentives trumped cool.  I've already ordered "My Third Subaru" loyalty badge for Isabella the Impreza.  A social media presence and a stand-out ad campaign aren’t enough to sway this customer, in the end it comes down to what saves the most money.