Hyundai Accent Meets Tron. 3D Projection Ad

You have to check out this outdoor 3D projection made by Hyundai! Because my jaw nearly dropped off my face when I first saw this! This is an advertisement for the new 2011 Hyundai Accent. Sorry wrong term, I think stunt is more appropriate. Forget whatever you think you know about Hyundai or the previous generation Accents. Because just by virtue of pulling off something like this, Hyundai has made every single car brand, from Toyota to Honda to Nissan, even punching above its weight right up to a BMW or Mercedes or Audi, it made every other car seemed sooo last decade. Watch it for yourself below.



And you know what's even more surprising? This stunt was not made in New York or Berlin or Shanghai or Tokyo, but right here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Jalan Bukit Bintang to be exact. Just right next to Sungai Wang.

Watch the making of this stunt below. Somewhat inspired by Tron Legacy, maybe little bits of Inception?

The applause from the crowd at the end of the video says it all.

Still no word on the launch of the Accent locally though. The mega high budget required for this stunt suggests that this was not an effort by the local distributor. In fact I doubt if the local distributor Hyundai Sime Darby were even involved in this at all, aside from maybe arranging for the vehicle importation, customs clearance and logistics. There isn't even any teasers either on their official website or even on HSD's Facebook. The video was posted on official Hyundai global Youtube channel, so this suggests that it is an effort by the principal Hyundai Motor Co. to produce a global marketing material to be used by all its overseas markets.

The latest generation Accent, code name RB series, is also sold under various different names; i25 (Australia, Europe), Verna (China) and Solaris (Russia).

The RB series Accent was first unveiled last April, during the 2010 Beijing Motor Show. In a previous post, we have explained the trend of how mainland Chinese consumers are increasingly exerting their influence in determining what we drive. The current Nissan Teana, Peugeot 207 sedan, upcoming Peugot 408, Ford Fiesta sedan and Mazda 2 sedan, Chevrolet Spark, Chevrolet Aveo sedan, were all developed either primarily for the Chinese market or came as a result of lobbying by Chinese distributors. The new RB series Verna / Accent is no different, as if its global debut in Beijing is not obvious enough.

In fact, during the Verna's (as the Accent is known in China) global launch in China, Euisun Chung, the Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor said "Developed over a five-year period expressively for the Chinese market, product planners conducted exhaustive market research of Chinese consumer tastes and trends to ensure every detail meets local requirements. Built on an all-new platform at the company's highly automated plant in Beijing, Verna is targeted at China's strategically important C1 (Ed: Due to the many proliferation of cross-segment straddling cars in China, European market segmentation is not adopted in China, the Verna is a better explained to us as a B-segment car, similar to Vios / City) segment and fully reflects Hyundai's philosophy of quality.

"Today is a really special day for us, not only because we're launching a new car, but because it's one of the very few times we've done a world-premiere outside of Korea: And we chose to do it right here in China because it's our way of recognizing how important our Chinese customers are to us,"

In China, the Hyundai-Kia Group is among the top-3 highest selling car brands, even higher than Toyota or Honda or Nissan. The other two top selling brands are GM owned brands and VW Group (including Audi).

The Verna is about the size of a Honda City. In fact, it is just 5mm longer (4340mm) and 5mm wider (1700mm) than the City. In China, the Verna is offered with two engine choices, a 1.4-liter petrol and 1.6-liter petrol. According to Hyundai's manufacturer's figures. Fuel consumption is rated at 5.7-liter per 100km for the 1.4-liter 5-speed manual, while the 1.4-liter CVT automatic with Fuel Economy Package (China market) achieves 6.2-liter per 100km. No official figures were provided by HMC for the 1.6-liter petrol version although distributors in certain countries have published them, but we think these are their internal figures, done independently from HMC so it's not right to lump them together. As the fuel consumption testing methodology used is not defined, we caution against taking these manufacturer's figures seriously. We have explained before previously that different companies / countries have different methods of measuring fuel consumption, each of them can deliver wildly different results on the same car.

Trump card for the Verna / Accent is its best in class wheelbase length, at 2570mm versus 2550 for both the Honda City and Toyota Vios. The longer wheelbase is obviously a result of Chinese consumers' demands. However, its bootsize, at 454 liters, is still smaller than either the City (506-liters) or the Vios (475 liters). But we need to caution that it many not be fair to do a direct comparison, as none of the manufacturers can confirm if these measurements were done using the VDA methodology.

Pictures below were from the Verna / Accent / i25's global debut in the April 2010 Beijing Motor Show.





So, do you want one?

By the way, about the video we just saw, does anyone how did they make car somehow disappear from the wall? Or was still there and somehow the projected image hid it? The production crew, as well as the creative agency that did this deserve the highest recognition for pulling this off, as well as Hyundai for being brave enough to do this. Not many car companies are willing to try something so new. I cannot image someone like Honda or Toyota or Nissan doing this. They are just barely coming to grasp with social media, yes there are using it, but they are far from knowing how to capitalize on it. Social media does not mean just putting up your TVCs on Youtube or announcing your promos on your Facebook page. That's no different from transferring your ads from print media to online media. Unfortunately social media sites of the most car companies here are doing merely just that. Hyundai does live up to the tagline "New thinking. New possibilities." The video has now gone viral worldwide, attracting almost 170,000 views on Youtube in just a little over a week.

Think this is an out of world idea? Check out the intro ad of their page newthinking.hyundai.com. Visit the page to find out more. Think it's enough to convert to anyone bar the most stubborn Korean-car-phobe to be a Hyundai fan?

To get notified of new updates, subscribe to our RSS feeds at the right side column bar. Like what you read? Share this on Facebook by Liking this post or join our Facebook page here.