Virat Khullar, AVP and vertical head - marketing, Hyundai Motor India, chats with Manifest about how the South Korea-based car manufacturer has evolved in India, its partnership with the brand’s ‘longest-serving employee’ Shah Rukh Khan, why it associated with Deepika Padukone and more...

Hyundai launched in 1998 in India with the Santro with an ad featuring Shah Rukh Khan (SRK). How has the brand evolved since then?

Hyundai has always had a keen eye on this glorious country. We had one of the first manufacturing facilities in India and building a strong brand relevant to the local diaspora has been the mantra from day one.

We have pioneered in technologies launched too, whether it was CRDi (Common Rail Direct Injection), proliferation of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) democratisation of sunroofs, and creating an entire segment with the launch of the Creta. There’s a long list of product innovations we’ve had in India over the last 25-odd years.

Secondly, on the brand side, you mentioned the first brand campaign featuring Shah Rukh Khan. He’s been with us for more than 25 years now. We realised the power of a celebrity very early in our journey.

Recently, the whole marketing landscape has transformed with social media rising, and technologies like CG, VR and AI coming in. For us, it’s not about just TV and digital but also innovations on-ground like working with Red Bull, Lego installations, and other 4D activations. Some of them are first for the industry. Ultimately, we have to excite our consumers by being where they are and today, we have made a formidable, likeable trusted brand in India.

You added Deepika Padukone as brand ambassador alongside SRK. What was the idea behind this? Are we seeing more women car owners emerge? Can you share the ratio between your male and female car buyers?

It wasn’t a gender-specific decision. Two years ago we started signing women brand endorsers - we had five cricketers in the Alcazar commercial alongside Shah Rukh Khan and that created a lot of buzz. Three of them – Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma continue with us as part of our family.

We wanted to sign in another youth, global icon to the roster. We had SRK single-handedly doing a lot of endorsements for us. He calls himself the first and longest-standing employee of the company in India. We added Padukone for the sheer scale, iconicity and connect. She is popular not only among the young and old but also among the masses and premium audiences. We know the kind of products coming down the line and she’s a perfect fit (for them). This is just the start of our association with her.

About women buyers, as per our data in 2023, 11% of our purchases came from them. What, unfortunately, a lot of us marketers don’t consider is the influence every family member has towards a purchase of a white or brown good. It’s no longer the decision of one person in the family.

And yes, women appeal to men, and men appeal to women. We have a wide variety of products and services and it was easy for us to add Deepika Padukone to the family.

You spoke about Padukone reaching out to premium and mass audiences. Rural is a big growth sector for all brands across categories. Hyundai sold about 1.15 lakh units in rural India. How do you reach out to this part of the country? Could you also define what Hyundai labels rural?

The divide between rural and urban is almost non-existent. Media of any kind, be it TV, radio or print, is sans borders. It’s reaching tier two, three, four and five. To give a simple number, our SUV penetration nationally is equal to our SUV penetration in rural markets.

To define rural – we have RSOs (rural sales outlets) which are present in tier three and four towns and also in certain areas in big cities which are defined as low propensity to purchase. A deep suburb beyond areas like Virar and Navi Mumbai (outside of Mumbai) also contributes to our rural sales. This is the definition that most of the category uses.

We just released a catchy campaign for the Exter which has been translated into eight different languages. We have done radio too in rural markets. Parallelly, our rural sales team is running a big activation platform called Grameen Mahotsav, through which we are canvassing with cars going into smaller cities, where our rural sales outlets are not present. This helps us with leads. 

The important part is that we have strong brand awareness in these regions, but there may be a hesitation in consideration because of our outlets. With 1,551 service points and 1,366 sales points, we have one of the biggest networks in our country. As a player of this size, you have to not only go deep in the market but also widen and grow them. It’s not only in cars but rural areas are giving better returns and growth across categories.

Rural penetration for Hyundai over the years:

FY 2022: 17%

FY 2023: 18%

FY 2024 (currently): 19%

Last year on Sony, we partnered as principal partner for the Asian Games. There are conversations about the Olympics, as we speak, but not because cricket is more expensive. We advertise on scale. It’s about cost per reach, at that point of time, what’s the product in question and the company objective.

About it (the Paris Olympics) being closer to the festive season – every month is critical for us. As a marketer, the month of May will have different objectives compared to the mont of October. I have to generate short-term demand daily and build middle and long-term demand as well.

With regards to media spends - can you share the split between traditional and digital? How’s this changing?

The share of digital media for Hyundai is 31% for 2024. It’s similar to last year’s number.

We divide digital into search, social and media. We have strong partnerships with both Google and Meta. Right now, the focus is stronger on performance marketing and getting leads.

Television leads with around 45% of our spends. Print is less than 10%. Our regional and field teams use print for daily lead generation and walk-in generations. For the head office, we use it for very mass, nation-wide campaigns.

As an industry observer, automobile advertising in general could do better in terms of creativity. What are the challenges in the Indian automobile marketing space currently?

Automobile advertising could do better for sure. I challenge our marketing team and agencies to move beyond shooting great cars on great roads. Looking at the campaigns we’ve done – the recent one for the Creta with SRK and Deepika, the movie trailer and launching it at PVR was interesting. The current one for Exter ‘dil mein bas jaaye Exter’is also very quirky and different from the regular car campaigns.

It’s a busy time for brands in India - the elections, the IPL, the T20 World Cup and then the Paris Olympics. How is Hyundai spreading its budgets across this?

The good news is that because of the intensity of the properties available, cricket, elections and other sports events, advertising expenditure has grown in the Q1 calendar year 2024 versus the same period last year.

Secondly, we as marketers have to make choices. We can’t be everywhere. Currently, we have invested more in news – both regional and national. We are in talks and considering the ICC Men’s World Cup T20, but are not part of the IPL. Getting the right reach on digital, GRPs on TV is what we have planned.

We have new campaigns for other upcoming launches planned in the next two months.

With cricket becoming more expensive and cluttered, do you think the Paris Olympics offers a good platform for brands to reach out to sports fans? It’s also closer to the festive season…

At Hyundai, we are looking at a purpose-driven campaign called Samarthwhich is creating awareness about disabled people in India. So this resonates better with the Paralympics and we are in conversation with them.

With overlapping portfolios and one that is so vast, brand personas have to be created.

Whether it is youth-oriented or a little massy for families among others, we have to have differentiated campaigns and need to run them in cohesion and hopefully a lot of our products are doing well because of the campaigns.

This article first appeared in the May issue of Manifest. Get your copy here.