[Editor’s Note: What in your pitch will catch a journalist’s eye? When we saw a press release that mentioned KIA Canada was going to power a guitar from an electric vehicle’s battery, we had to know more. Indeed, in late July Kia Canada launched its EV6 crossover with a press event featuring Canadian singer/songwriter Fefe Dobson, 36. The car’s battery powered the electric guitar of Dobson’s guitarist, Ryan Chalmers. Our curiosity led to a conversation with Michael Kopke, marketing chief, Kia Canada.
Kopke told us the event was intended to overcome several struggles. Canadians, he says, know Kia Canada, but they’re unable to name its car models or say whether it’s a sports car or minivan company. In addition, the event was intended to highlight Kia Canada’s new brand and EV6, the face of the brand. The interview also highlights the importance of listening to customers. They might spur your next messaging idea, as they did for Kia Canada. Kopke spoke with PRNEWS from Toronto in early August. A shorter version of this story will run in September’s PRNEWS.]
PRNEWS: Can you recall how all this came to be? How long it took?
Michael Kopke: In terms of the idea, it came up during an early product research clinic, where we tested the vehicle with customers to see how the features and design resonate. And what came out of the clinic was that the V2L (vehicle to load, which allows users to pull juice from the car’s battery to power appliances, such as projectors, air conditioners, TVs etc.) was a clear ‘aha’ moment for customers. They’d say, ‘Oh, that’s really neat. I can go camping potentially with this vehicle.’ Or they can power a light or a projector. It goes all the way up to powering a mini-fridge.
So, the original idea was when we execute our press event, since we’re doing it in the summer, wouldn’t it be cool if we hand out water bottles to the journalists from a fridge that’s plugged into the car. That was the initial gestation of how we’d bring V2L [to the event’s messaging].
But once we identified the connecting opportunity with Fefe, we were like, ‘Wait a minute. Could we actually plug an electric guitar in here too?’
We checked with the engineers and then we tested it. We ran the guitar for 20 minutes at full volume and it worked. And we learned it was not a problem at all. In fact, after the test there was almost no depletion of battery power from the car.
PRNEWS: I guess since Elon Musk’s infamous demo of the Tesla Cyber Truck in 2019 you tested the guitar and V2L pretty carefully?
Kopke: Yes. There were no bricks involved in our demo. [Laughter]
PRNEWS: But seriously, you probably tested and re-tested the V2L to make sure it could power a guitar for an entire concert.
Kopke: Oh, yes, for sure, we did. It was a pre-production car and they’re basically made by hand. The engineers told us it could power a few things, but they’d never tested it with an electric guitar. So, we did it ourselves. We brought in the amp, plugged it in and it worked perfectly. And, again, the thing was the battery was at 99 percent before the concert and after, and basically the charge hadn’t changed at all. That was very encouraging.
PRNEWS: Tell us about the research that went into the decision to introduce a car with a musical event.
Kopke: There’s a bit of research that formed an insight for us. But it was really the business problem we were trying to solve that led us down the path [to the event].
In Canada, the Kia brand is well-known…but we still struggle for people to articulate the exact car names or to be able to say whether we are a mini-van company or an SUV company or a sports car company. We struggle at that…level. That’s the research part.
Layered on top of that, with the brand relaunch and the EV6, the business problem was how do we get people to sit up and listen? Because whether or not you know Kia, we want you to tune into the event. It was live streamed as well as being an in-person event.
Secondly, how do we get people to listen in a different way? Because we are launching the brand, the new logo, new sentiment, new approach etc.
The event itself included auto journalists but also, we invited a good chunk of lifestyle influencers, to get the brand communicated out in the context of Fefe, the concert and talk about the brand in a different light. On top of that, we were limited [by COVID] on the number of people we could invite. Still, we wanted to get the event out beyond Toronto, in both English and French. So, we expanded out to the virtual side of things.
Fefe is the reason to dial in. She’s a popular artist and resonates with our target market, which is in the mid-40s and aligns with the EV6, a 5-passenger crossover, which is the largest segment in Canada and so a very important car for us. It’s the idea of Fefe attached to Kia, you’ll listen to hear what new music Fefe is doing and you’ll be introduced to the Kia brand, whether or not you’re familiar with the brand or not.
So, we’ve had tremendous sales success but we think there’s more opportunity. And we’re struggling to build the brand up and want people to look at us differently, not just existing customers but new customers. Fefe is introducing the brand [to those who don’t know it] and it’s a demo that she resonates with and is also our target.
PRNEWS: How did you get people to tune in? And are you satisfied with the results, after just one month?
Kopke: Yes, we’re thrilled with the result; we’re already 125 percent of our target.
To get publicity for the event, it was several things. First, our PR team has good relations with the auto media, so it was a conversation and then an invite to the event. We’ve also undertaken an influencer program for the last couple of years. So, we reached out to those people who supported us already.
Beyond that we had a social media program that went out through the Kia Canada social channels inviting people to log in and listen to the event, but also Fefe was very supportive on her channels (58K followers on Instagram, iamfefemusic). We also urged our owner base (customers) to tune in. We got very good engagement.
PRNEWS: What messages were you trying to convey with the concert-event [July 27]?
Kopke: Kia, globally and within Canada, is kicking off our long-term plan, Plan S (the S is for shift). It’s a complete, long-term plan around our shift toward mobility in general, which includes electric cars, plug-in hybrids, hybrids and other strategies around mobility as a service. That was one message.
Another message was the redefinition of our brand, including our new tagline, which is ‘Movement That Inspires,’ along with the new logo and new ethos.
The third message was the EV6 [crossover vehicle] itself. It’s built off our new E-GMP platform. EV6 is the first vehicle coming off of that [platform] and is the first one in our Plan S strategy.
PRNEWS: Three messages in one press briefing. And you wanted a Canadian story?
Kopke: Right. So, we had three interconnected messages. Still, communicating three messages during a press event is fairly complicated.
PRNEWS: How do you do that?
Kopke: So, the job is communicating a brand-new idea, a new approach for the company with a new vehicle. Our PR team and agency connected with Fefe Dobson, who is famous in Canada. And [like Kia Canada] she’s shifting her approach and her career. She’s launching an album and a single.
So, we decided this would be a good way of connecting the reinvention story, [using] a musician well-known to our target demo in Canada [who also is reinventing herself].
And then within in the vehicle itself, as I mentioned, we have something called V2L. That’s the ability to take power out of the car’s battery to power other devices. It’s a differentiating feature.
So, we said, ‘Good grief, what if we could power an electric guitar to start off the show?’ It would really connect the dots, making it an electric story all the way through.
PRNEWS: What’s next?
Kopke: Well, the concert was the kickoff and we were happy with it. The car begins selling in early 2022 and we’ll have a larger roll-out campaign around it then. We haven’t figured out all of that yet, but Fefe might be part of that. Her team is open to it.
With electric vehicles, a large chunk of the market is tech-savvy, so a huge part of the campaign will be online channels. But EV6 also is the face of our new brand, so there will be a mass-media element aimed at all Canadians, not just the target market.
PRNEWS: What metrics and targets will you use to measure success?
Kopke: Some of those haven’t been set. However, with the global unveiling of the vehicle, in Korea a while back, we launched a pre-launch page where people can literally put their name and email address if they’re interested. So, we’ve been collecting hand-raisers for about a month or so. We set ourselves a target for hand-raisers by the end of the year and we’re already at 85 percent of the target. And that target was a good 20-25 percent higher than our best hand-raiser target, so indications are good that.
Contact: [email protected]