Kia gamifies app to target “marketing suspicious” men
Kia has launched a gamified car modification app aimed at introducing the brand and its Koup model, to 18-30 year old males “whilst engaging them in a familiar environment”.
The app, Koup Kustoms, offers consumers the tools to become street-car designers. It allows players to modify and design their own Koup as well as create and share their own Koup Kustoms inspired magazine covers.
It has been created by We Are Social, with group account director Chris Bridgland saying in a statement: “We took the idea of individualism and created a campaign wrapped around the idea of self expression; an automotive campaign that allows participants to use the car as a canvas, to design, capture and share beautiful imagery which best represents themselves.”
The app, designed and built by We Are Social and creative agency Innocean Australia, integrates design elements and gaming functionality. Players can earn ‘Experience Points’ by completing goals and challenges. Until the end of the year, players also have the chance to win prizes including weekly rewards and the grand prize of a new Kia Koup Turbo.
Kia Australia GM of marketing Steve Watt said in a statement: “The aim of the campaign is to excite and connect with young Australian drivers around the launch of the 2014 Cerato Koup. The Koup, historically, hasn’t connected with the young audience in Australia and we believe that the way to connect with these highly ‘marketing suspicious’ and time-poor individuals is to talk to them on their level.”
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Well after downloading and installing a plug in I got to change the colour of a car. Then it asked me to post it to my facebook wall before the app crashed.
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Didnt Holden do this for Berina (not on an app) a few years back?
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As the term “app” is synonymous with mobile, and as this “app” is desktop based, this article should have used the term “desktop app”.
Kudos to Kia for taking a step forward to the future: to the desktop.
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What a fine turkey for thanksgiving.
Whoever wins this will not be the person with the most creative design but the guy who had the stamina and patience to suffer through this slow, unintuitive frankly frustrating ‘app.’
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Have you used it Raoul? It’s changing colours on a car and to use it you have to give Kia access to your friends list.
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I totally agree with Gary.
Totally unintuitive and frustrating. Too slow, too much downloading and no I don’t want to be forced to post every piece of underwhelming output to my Facebook wall. After 5 minutes I’d had enough.
Whilst it’s not targeted at the cool kids, contrast this effort with the interactive build tool for the X-Trail on the Nissan website. This is how it should be done.
http://www.nissan.com.au/
NB: I have nothing to do with Nissan or the car industry. I am just a freelance digital marketer and blogger.
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