Hyundai’s Full Electric range is the most comprehensive offer on the market, it is the only brand with all five electric car technologies thanks to signicant R&D investments over decades. The brand was looking for an innovative way to raise awareness of this very complete range of electric vehicles, increase test drives, and strengthen the brand’s commitment to sustainability.

Carsharing has been implemented in most of Spain’s larger cities for years, and its implementation continues to grow rapidly, both in number of set ups and automotive brands that collaborate in such projects. The thriving business has truly allowed customers to discover a sustainable and more economical mobility model, in the same token, it has also allowed brands to use the scheme as a test drive experience and promotional platform for their new models.

Hyundai did not want to miss out on this opportunity but it did not want to just be another kid on the urban block, moreover, we did not only want to reach out to a young target audience in urban settings (30-40 years), those with a heightened awareness of the benets of sustainable mobility, but also the other 16% of Spaniards (7M) who live in rural settings.

The time had nally come to take this car sharing concept born in the cities into rural settings and populations.

We set our eyes on Campisábalos, a town to the north of Guadalajara with 50 inhabitants and, even more importantly, the town with the purest air in Spain and the third purest in the world according to the WHO. With electric car sharing, Hyundai would help keep it that way.

We launched VIVe, the first carsharing service that is 100% rural and 100% electric. A socially responsible initiative that would allow Hyundai to position itself as a committed brand offering a real solution that connects the smallest rural municipalities in a way that is clean and environmentally sustainable. 

The communication strategy was based on two strategic pillars:

- A PR offensive to achieve maximum impact and newsworthiness of the project that would go beyond rural areas and reach our urban target interested in the story.

- Content generation through the brand’s social platforms to achieve a positive conversation that amplies the message.

Our strategy was clear: We wanted to raise awareness and support urban and rural sales of the new range by creating a new business model, a 100% rural and 100% electric carsharing service. The car service would be our media channel, just like an OOH media outlet, raising visibility and enhancing the brand’s positive image perception all over the country.

An extraordinary town hall meeting was called where Hyundai’s product chief explained the features of the model to all citizens.

We then installed 2 charging points in the Village, and we used one of the latest models from the Full Electric range available to the town, the Hyundai KONA Electric. We also developed an exclusive mobile app on IOS and Android to facilitate vehicle bookings.

The PR offensive consisted of impacting the main automotive, ecological, financial key opinion leaders. We also reached local newspapers and sectorial media through a direct marketing campaign that consisted in sending a bottle filled with Campisábalos pure air, as well as a video announcement and a press release explaining the project.

This initiative drew media to the village where they took videos of the villagers using the service, they interviewed the mayor of the city and we made prime time news in many national channels and newspapers.

We also produced content that we pushed on the brands social channels (FB, Twitter, Instagram) with a concerted paid media campaign. The campaign was based on the production of a case study video and six short fun videos that break the stereotype that innovation is incompatible with the rural work 

A dedicated website: www.hyundaivive.es, was created to explain the initiative and upload the campaign content.

Furthermore, we involved the dealerships all over Spain to develop a national scheme through which we also managed to support sales with an original test drive to try out the new electric models.

The new rural carsharing service in turn acted as a media outlet for showcasing the electric models, reaching an audience who live outside the big cities. In just three months, over 5,000 km have already been travelled with our service, achieving a PR value of over €800,000. In the social campaign we have achieved a CPView as low as €0.009 to €0.014, which has allowed us to greatly optimise the available budget of €46,548, achieving spectacular results:

- Reach: 5,210,276

- Impressions: 16,269,159

- Views: + 5,000,000

- Engagement: 3,919,613

We contributed to sparking a conversation about sustainable mobility on social media, and most importantly of all, dozens of towns and villages have contacted the brand requesting the service for their inhabitants, demonstrating that the service responds to a real need to connect these municipalities.

On the second phase of the project we are preparing, dealerships from all over spain will be involved to develop a national scheme based on the carsharing business model. Dealerships will provide cars, maintenance and sales services to municipalities.