Spider-Man x Hyundai
Turning product integration
into pop culture
For Hyundai’s film integration partnership with Sony, we needed to not only entertain fans but become a part of the pop culture phenomenon growing around the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home. To do so, we chose to embed our film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and had our film’s storyline pick up where the last Spiderman movie ends and the upcoming movie would begin.
Embedding our story into the Marvel Cinematic Universe
At the conclusion of the previous film Peter Parker has his identity revealed to the world and fans were clamoring to find out what would happen next. So we crafted a story that picked up at the end of the second Spider-Man film and bridged the story into the upcoming film. With the help of Spider-Man: No Way Home director, Jon Watts, we filled it with easter eggs, teasing what might come next in the upcoming film. In doing so, our commercial had fans rewatching it frame by frame, searching for clues and speculating over every last detail. With online views in the tens of millions, our film effectively blurred the line between entertainment and marketing and had fans applauding the work, declaring it Marvel canon.
We crafted the film so that the Hyundai IONIQ 5 is integral in the story as it surprisingly comes to the aid of the web-slinging superhero in the one place he could actually use some help.
The press was raving as well
Superfan influencers jump in
Erik Voss got in to break down the commercial, frame by frame, poring over every easter egg and speculating over every potential possible meaning it might lead to, for over 7 minutes. Which only got fans speculating even more.
World Premiere
Next up was the world premiere of the film with an activation that led to the photo opp everyone on the red carpet had to have and share across social media.
Fan Art Posters
Inspired by the minimalist style of the original comics, we created a limited-run of fan art posters for the premiere and select locations, as well as making it available for a limited time as a digital wallpaper.
Sony Center—Berlin, Germany
Social
Social channels were utilized to tease, seed, share and amplify the campaign from pre-launch through the release of the film. Marvel fans couldn’t stop talking.
Case Study
Do it for the fans
Ultimately the campaign engaged fans worldwide, delivered record-breaking results and blurred the lines between entertainment and advertising. It became part of the global pop culture conversation and the fans themselves deemed our film worthy of being Marvel “canon”.