CELEBRATE YOUR MILESTONES IN BUSINESS AND LIFE……

“HYUNDAI INDIA ROLLS OUT TEN MILLIONTH CAR”. This was the headline in most of the motoring columns on 3rd July 2021. Hyundai announced the roll out of its Ten Millionth car from its production facilities in India. The car in question is the new Hyundai Alcazar. This milestone comes 23 years after the Korean carmaker began manufacturing operations in 1998 in India.

? Image Source: Internet

Such milestones are opportunities for the dealerships to engage their employees and the target audience. I recall a similar milestone in December 2003 when Hyundai India rolled out their 500,000th car which was a Santro Xing.?

Image Source: (Santro, The Car That Built a Company, BVR Subbu, Former President of Hyundai Motor India Ltd)

At that time, I was handling the dealership operation in North Karnataka at Hubli. When I came across the news, I saw an opportunity and immediately discussed the strategy with the Sales and Marketing team. We announced a print campaign through the local Kannada dailies. The market had not become digital then and so we had to depend on the print media. We made a Black & White creative.

The campaign was very simple. We called up the Hyundai regional office in Chennai and ascertained the Colour of the car which was rolled out.

In the final creative we added one more line. The Santro Xing comes in the following colours:

?‘Real Earth, Husky Blue, Noble White, Passion Red, Bright Silver, Ebony Black and Amethyst Mauve’

• We communicated to our customers and potential customers that Hyundai has touched a milestone by rolling out 500,000 cars
• To engage the target audience, we asked them to Guess the Colour of the Car, a Santro Xing
• ?To make the game simple we also told them about the different Colour variants of the car

We used to release our ads in the local Kannada newspapers and the highest response received for any print ad was not more than forty calls or enquiries. The response to this ad surprised us. 158 people responded. The responses were either through a post card and some people used the cut-away portion in the ad. Our team was enthusiastically checking the entries eager to find out the winner. None of the respondents of the campaign wrote the correct Colour, which was Amethyst Mauve. It was a rare Colour which one cannot visualize. Incidentally, we had sold only one car, that too a Hyundai Accent in that Colour.

On the last day of the campaign, a family with two children came to the dealership from upcountry North Karnataka for service of their Santro. After handing over the vehicle for service the customer walked in to my office with his little girl with the filled up coupon in her hand. The girl handed over the coupon to me. To my surprise she had guessed the Colour correctly. Amethyst Mauve.

We organized a small function in the evening with the presence of the media and the prize was handed over to the girl. How the little girl guessed the name correctly was a mystery to me when 158 people failed. My curiosity was kindled and I asked her about it. She replied with a smile. “All the other six colours were very common and we see them on the road day in and day out. Amethyst Mauve is a rare Colour, difficult to visualize and even difficult to pronounce. So, I guessed that it has to be a special Colour. That is how”. Our Dealer Principle congratulated her on her smart reply.

Takeaways from the activity:

1.??????The campaign became a talk of the town.

2.??????The colours of the Hyundai cars became popular among the target audience. The North Karnataka Market was very Colour specific. The TV commercials of Hyundai Santro showed Shah Rukh Khan driving a Passion Red Santro. But when it came to purchase customers chose white or silver.

3.??????The enthusiasm of the team was something to talk about for the days to come.

Tail piece: Today in the digital era, it is much easier to do such campaigns through the digital and social media viz. FB, WhatsApp, Instagram and engage a large cross-section of your target audience for a miniscule of the cost.