Super Bowl Spikes: Kia, Hyundai, Toyota Find End Zone
Executives and analysts with Cox Automotive listed Kia, Toyota, and Hyundai among the factories whose Super Bowl car commercials sparked interest and traffic among car buyers.
“Give It Everything,” a 100-second ad for the new Kia Telluride, celebrates the people of West Point, Ga., where the SUV is built, and led all Super Bowl car commercials in Autotrader’s postgame report.
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ATLANTA — This year’s Super Bowl featured six commercials from five automakers, or roughly half the usual number. But executives and analysts with Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book (divs. Cox Automotive) say ads for Audi, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota did their part to spark interest among viewers of a decidedly lackluster Super Bowl — in which the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams by a score of 13-3 — and a widely maligned, Maroon 5-led halftime show.
“The car ads were more entertaining than the actual game and halftime show put together,” said Brian Moody, executive editor of Autotrader. “The Hyundai spot with Jason Bateman was both entertaining and informative. Kia and Audi also scored big with their spots.”
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Autotrader analysts said Kia’s “Give It Everything” ad for the seven-passenger Telluride SUV led the site’s Super Bowl rankings with a 10,000% lift in traffic. Bateman stars in the “The Elevator,” Hyundai’s humorous introduction to its new flagship SUV, the eight-passenger Palisade, which earned a 2,057% lift in post-air traffic. Toyota earned the top spot in total traffic volume on the strength of “Toni,” an ad for the RAV4 Hybrid that features female college football player Antoinette “Toni” Harris.
Toyota’s new RAV4 Hybrid commercial stars Antoinette Harris, one of very few female players to have earned a college football scholarship. "Toni" pushed Toyota to the top of Kelley Blue Book’s Super Bowl brand-volume rankings.
Toyota also earned the No. 1 brand-traffic volume spot from Kelley Blue Book, which compares new-car pageviews one hour after each ad ran against views registered the hour before the game. Kia enjoyed a 166% lift in brand rank after the Telluride spot aired, trailed at some distance by Hyundai (62%) and Mercedes-Benz (36%).
“The Kia Telluride ad clearly resonated, probably because it had all the major factors you want in a Super Bowl ad,” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher for Kelley Blue Book. “First, it had a human connection, which has worked really well in the past. Second, it was exceptionally well-produced, with a sense of purpose and a great message. And finally, it was advertising an impressive-looking SUV, which the market is hungry for these days.”
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