autoevolution
 

Hyundai's Super Bowl Commercial Suggests You're a Jerk If You Buy Anything Else

Much like Toyota, except one short, Hyundai also decided to go with two very different commercials for this year's Super Bowl. One of them featured a Kona-owning soccer referee who decided to cut short a kids match by sending all the players off for the most ridiculous reasons ("too cute," to give but one), just so him and the other adults could make it in time to watch a real game - namely, the Super Bowl.
Hyundai Super Bowl commercial 1 photo
Not only is it incredibly insulting to think parents would value the Super Bowl more than their children's game, but also to imagine somebody would be stupid enough to schedule the match at the same time as America's arguably greatest sporting event of the year. Well, it's a commercial, so what do you want?

This one was supposed to be the fun, lighthearted of the two. So what about the second one? Well, we hope you have a box of tissues handy, because you might need them. Similar to Toyota's approach, the South Korean carmaker wanted to give everyone watching a reason to shed a tear, not only the fans of the losing team.

It centers around Hyundai's "Hope on Wheels" non-profit organization which has been making donations to support pediatric cancer research for every car the manufacturer sold over the past 20 years. That's genuinely a great move from Hyundai, and one all carmakers should follow. With millions of cars being sold each year, if they would only take $10 off each one it would still make a huge difference.

Knowing this, however, doesn't it make you feel slightly bad if you chose another brand? Don't you feel like a bit of a monster? You could have helped a child in need, and yet you decided that your preference for a certain brand was more important and bought that one instead. It's a bit of a blow below the belt from Hyundai, but we guess everything is fair in love and war, and the automotive industry is definitely a battlefield.

The ad itself features a so-called "Hope detector" - an airport-like metal detector that filters Hyundai owners from the rest and directs them to a special room. Instead of a full cavity search, they are greeted by a large screen where a person who has benefitted from the Hope on Wheels activity expresses their gratitude.

To make things even touchier - though there really wasn't any need to - once the clip is over, the person featured comes in through a door to thank the Hyundai owner in person and let the floodgates open.

Come to think of it, though, if Hyundai was really so interested in helping that research, it could have skipped advertising during the Super Bowl altogether and donated that money (a hefty sum, we would imagine) to "Hope on Wheels," right? Yeah, welcome to the hypocritical world of marketing and sales.

  

If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Vlad Mitrache
Vlad Mitrache profile photo

"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories