Hyundai Motor Company’s global brand campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ won the Silver Lions award at the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world’s most prestigious advertising festival held in Cannes, France. Established in 1954, Cannes International Advertising Festival gained more than 25,000 entries from over 90 countries this year, and it is one of the most prestigious advertisement accolades in the world. At this year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival, Hyundai Motor’s campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ was also shortlisted in the Design category, along with the Silver Lion awards in the Outdoor Billboard and Print advertising categories.
In fact, the campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ has won several awards at various advertising festivals before this Cannes International Advertising Festival; It won the Graphite Pencil (Silver Award) in the Photography category at the European Advertising and Design Awards’ D&AD (Design and Art Direction)’ held in May. Also, it won seven awards at the “The One Show Award” in the United States and was honored with two silver and bronze awards at the German ADC (The Art Directors Club).
The campaign ‘The Bigger Crash,’ which drew attention from multiple advertising festivals around the world, pursued to highlight the seriousness of global warming and promote discussions to create a more eco-friendly world. Scientists have long shown a strong link between global warming and today’s extreme weather events. It has become more evident that such events are more frequent than in the past due to global warming.
Hyundai Motor Company’s campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ reveals this situation with just the photos in the video. Each photo in the video has a caption with a name and speed, so they appear to be related to a car accident. For example, the first photo that appears at the beginning of the video says ‘Irma’ and ‘298 km/h’. And the name ‘Katrina’ and ‘280 km/h’ are shown in the next photo, and then ‘Jebi’ and ‘285 km/h’.
However, if you look closely at them, you can see they captured the damage of a natural disaster powerful enough to destroy everything around it. The name and speed displayed are the name and wind speed of the natural disaster, not the names of the victims and the speed of the accident. The name of the first photo, Irma, is a hurricane that devastated Florida, USA, in 2017. The names in the next two photos are also hurricane Katrina, which struck the southeastern United States in 2005, and typhoon Jebi, which struck Asia in 2013.
As such, the images in The Bigger Crash were not artificially created for the campaign. All photos included in the campaign capture the actual damage caused by natural disasters. These are photos taken by professional photographers who have witnessed this tragedy and captured it with their cameras. The campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ made viewers feel its sincerity by adding a sense of realism to the documentary photos of actual natural disasters.
Hyundai Motor’s campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ achieved good results even though it used already existing photos because it reinforced creativity by using real-world images of documentary writers. Above all, in the lower right corner of the photo are the type of disasters, names of the photographers, and the time of photography, to enhance the sense of realism of the natural disaster, adding realism and authenticity. Hyundai Motor’s creative and smart approach to this year’s campaign, The Bigger Crash, drew numerous attention from multiple international advertising festivals around the world, including the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
The Bigger Crash may seem a bit provocative as it vividly captures the actual damage from a terrifying natural disaster. However, this is intentional. Hyundai Motor Company decided that there was no better way to show the current state of the earth than the incredibly shocking photos. It is for the same reason that this campaign used the wind speed at the time of a natural disaster - Katrina 280 km/h or Jebi 285 km/h, etc. - just like the speed of the car. In this way, Hyundai conveys the seriousness of climate change, which is getting worse due to the increase in carbon dioxide, and emphasizes the need for an eco-friendly movement for future generations.
Regarding this directing, in a Debrief session that formally reviews the winners of the Cannes Advertising Festival, an official said, “there have been countless cases where automakers showed their car accident scenes and introduced their technology, but this was not the case. I was surprised that Hyundai could tell something as important as climate change with a scene from a car accident.”
As such, the campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ illuminates the serious problem of abnormal climate change that we have been overlooking through the photos in the video. It’s a reminder that climate change is by no means accidental like car accidents, and it’s relevant to all of us in one way or another. But that’s not to say that things are dire. ‘The Bigger Crash’ conveys the message that we must all act now and humbly reflect on the mistakes we have made in the past.
The ultimate goal of the campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ is to create a green future and a thoughtful approach to mobility. As one of the pioneers in the automobile industry, Hyundai Motor Company acknowledged the heavy responsibility of changing the current situation and making more efforts to save the planet.
In addition, Hyundai is a company that has the opportunity and ability to contribute to the great transformation that will prevent ‘The Bigger Crash’. This is why Hyundai Motor is actively moving forward to achieve its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. Hyundai Motor Company is doing its best to prevent any more disasters and accidents caused by abnormal climate changes, and is striving to create a world that can support and nurture the next generation. As Hyundai Motor’s global campaign ‘The Bigger Crash’ well indicates, Hyundai Motor’s efforts will not stop until carbon neutrality is achieved for all kinds of life on Earth.
HMG Journal Operation Team
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