Kia Australia has launched the all-new Stonic, a small SUV aimed at a younger audience, with a TikTok-led approach, as part of a wider integrated marketing campaign.
In collaboration with Kia and Scoundrel, Innocean Australia developed creative built specifically for TikTok, while keeping the message consistent across all platforms.
The bespoke creative showcased the Stonic against an urban background, blending Kia’s “unique style of maverick creativity” with fashion, art, videography, and Tik-Tok transitions to pull users in to learning more. This is all set to the high energy soundtrack of Young Franco’s ‘About this thing’.
In just a day, the Kia Stonic TopView achieved more than 7.2 million video views and engagement rates above already high platform benchmarks at 16.5 per cent.
The average watch time was 45 per cent above average with 16.29 per cent click through rate, indicating an new audience for Kia.
TikTok said Kia was the first auto brand to use a TopView ad in Australia outside a Challenge. This premium placement is the first video a user sees when opening the app, before merging into the first video of the feed.
“The Kia Stonic campaign was fun, fresh, and felt native to the TikTok platform, so it’s no surprise the community embraced it with open arms,” TikTok Australia and New Zealand general manager, global business solutions Brett Armstrong said.
Kia Australia digital marketing manager Nikolas Souliotis said: “Our focus was to greet TikTokers with a video that celebrates the vibrant and creative TikTok community, while delivering the purest expression of our Stonic campaign, blurring the lines between an ad and TikTok content.
“It’s very inspiring to be able to treat a forced view in a way that instead of interrupting the viewing experience for the user it helps strengthen our brand equity.”
Innocean Australia CX director Romy Briers said: “For us, it’s always about what’s next. We want to maintain our leadership in the digital space, and that means experimenting, co-creating, and innovating with Kia Australia on a regular basis.”
Credits for the campaign are as follows:
Kia Australia
General manager, marketing: Dean Norbiato
Digital marketing manager: Nikolas Souliotis
Brand manager: Andrew Phan
