Having undertaken a total re-branding strategy, the automotive giant KIA during the Milan Design Week 2023 created an innovative exhibition to present the company's new design philosophy, called “Opposites United” and focuses on the idea that the conciliation of opposites is not impossible, but rather is excellent for interpreting modernity with the eyes of the past but turned towards the future.
Furthermore, to advertise the exhibition and communicate with a target audience belonging to Generation Z, it decided to rely on UniversityBoxAgency, the best choice for all companies that need to find strategies and tactics to achieve a Young and youthful audience.
In this article, therefore, we will examine the communication project conceived and implemented by UniversityBox for Kia. In particular, we will delve into the themes of the exhibition and the marketing activities undertaken to communicate with GenZ.
KIA Opposites United at Milan Design Week 2023
Kia presented the exhibition at the Museo della Permanente, during the Milan Design Week 2023 “Opposites United Special Exhibition”The event consists of five monumental installations that tell the principles and pillars of Kia's new design philosophy. The installations are: “Bold for Nature”, “Joy for Reason”, “Tension for Serenity”, “Technology for Life” and “Power to Progress”. These five installations represent universes of meanings with the aim of immersing spectators in multisensory experiences through video and sound environments and digital sculptures.
The exhibition did not focus on Kia vehicles, but on the inspirations and principles that drive the brand. During Design Week, there were also five days dedicated to the five pillars of Kia, each of which was characterised by a talk and from a concert on theme “Opposites United”. These events have seen the participation of prominent cultural figures, musicians and artists from the Italian and international scene, committed to exploring new visions and new landscapes.
KIA, how to communicate the rebranding to Generation Z?
Once the exhibition was designed, KIA asked themselves what the more effective marketing strategies to broaden the communication of the event by involving a younger target audience. To be on the safe side, they decided to rely on a communication agency specialized in communication with students and young people. That's how we got the first call from KIA.
From the brief, on the client side, the desire to communicate with a target audience of ages between between 18 and 28 years old; on our side, instead, we started to think about what could be the most effective Marketing and communication strategy to achieve its objectives.
Let's see together what was the strategic proposal that we have made for KIA!
UniversityBox x KIA Project: What Marketing Activities Were Undertaken?
Immediately after completing the Brief, we started thinking about what tools and activities would allow us to obtain the results requested by the client. The strategic output we developed is made up of:
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- DEM Campaign (Direct Email Marketing) on a regional (Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna) and local (Milan) basis towards university students and 4th and 5th year high school students present in our database which includes more than 700 thousand students;
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- Article Marketing SEO oriented;
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- Coupon Average;
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- Sharing Campaign on social media;
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- Campaign of Influencer Marketing.
Let's explore them together!
Direct Email Marketing
The Direct Email Marketing, or DEM, is an online advertising technique that consists of sending advertising emails to a selected mailing list. The DEM has a much more commercial slant than a Newsletter and has the objective of generating new customers and retaining existing ones. Among the advantages main members of the DEM, we have focused on the fact that it has less regular deadlines and it is more addressed to short term results.
This marketing technique is particularly suitable for businesses that target university students, as its high customization and his character direct They are particularly appreciated by young people, who prefer communication less invasive and designed specifically for them.
In our case, we sent 3 DEMs to the UniversityBox community reaching almost 90,000 students and getting a Open Rate which is hovering around the 20%, an excellent value considering that it corresponds to approximately 20.00 university students who opened the communication.
SEO-Oriented Article Marketing
To ensure that users themselves could find information about the event, we also planned to draft a an SEO-Oriented article which was published on our official Blog, followed monthly by more than 3000 users in target audience with which KIA wanted to communicate.
By writing This SEO Optimized Blog Post (Search Engine Optimization), or written in such a way that it appears among the first results of search engines, it is possible to generate what in jargon is called Organic Traffic. This is a technique that is very undervalued within Italian SMEs but, data in hand, allows for excellent performance in terms of new visitors to the site.
Cuponing Campaign
As content to be conveyed via DEM and Article Marketing A Coupon dedicated to the event was created through which interested students could register and book their participation in the exclusive events held during the Design Week.
Sharing campaign on Social Media
To increase the reach of communication and to directly involve university students, we gave students the opportunity to download a story about the event and share it on their channels to get a 5 euro reward. In this way we were able to directly involve the campaign's target audience and exponentially increase the Share.
Micro Influencer Marketing
Today's audiences, especially young people, tend to trust advertising less and less and to trust characters they admire or consider relevant. For this very reason, we have decided to implement a strategy of Micro Influencer Marketing involving two Content Creator Milanese:
- Francesca Cappa (a young student from the University of Milan who deals with topics related to lifestyle, to the trips and the most interesting things to do every week in Milan). Through its contents we were able to reach an average of 3521 accounts, who left on average 20 interactions for each story/post;
View this post on Instagram
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- Gabriel Toma (a I photograph, video maker and student of the IED of Milan), to gather an audience interested in the merits of the exhibition. The reel that you can find below, for example, has been viewed by almost 4500 people receiving 90 interactions.
View this post on Instagram
The activities conceived and implemented for KIA have contributed to the amazing success that the event achieved; not to boast… but when it comes to communicating and Engaging Generation Z We really are the perfect choice!
If you would like to receive more information about the activities we have undertaken during this project for KIA or if you are part of a company that has similar needs, Don't hesitate to contact us! We will be more than happy to find the solution that best suits your needs. Marketing and Communication needs.