Hyundai Motor Group is constantly making efforts for its vision ‒ Together For a Better Future, just like the Hyundai Motor Group’s Big Idea campaign since 2015. The big campaign emphasizing the social use value of warm new technology with love for humanity was very positive in terms of PR and communication. In particular, the Big campaign, which the automaker launched at the end of last year, Dear My Hero, has been steadily receiving attention for over eight months. This campaign has shown that new technologies can improve the global environment and even the lives of our neighbors; The video recorded the most views and received many sympathetic comments in the shortest amount of time among those that Hyundai Motor Group has released online. While Dear My Hero is trending, it has recently won awards in Korea and abroad.
The most recent awards were held in Busan on August 25‒27. Dear My Hero received the Grand Prix of the Year as the best work of the year at the ‘2022 Busan International Advertising Festival (MAD STARS)’, Asia’s largest advertising event. This is the highest award given out of fifteen grand prix winners through discussion and voting by the judges.
The Busan International Advertising Festival, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, selects excellent works in the fields of Public Service Advertising and Product & Service every year. The competition was fierce this year; 19,000 advertisements from 73 countries were submitted, and 1,745 advertisements from 58 countries ‒ 1582 by professionals and 163 by amateurs ‒ went to the finals.
The judges included about 340 globally influential advertising experts ‒ including Brian Murray, who dominated major global advertising festivals with the Courage is Beautiful campaign to overcome COVID‒19, and Kathy Delaney, Lissette Guzman, etc. ‒ to secure fairness and professionalism.
In Public Service Advertising, where Dear My Hero competed, usually, governments and non‒profit organizations have been awarded for the specific standards ‒ environmental protection, human rights enhancement, education, and health improvement, with the goal of human happiness and social responsibility; Last year, however, the Donation Dollar campaign, which raised awareness of cyberbullying within online games, won the Grand Prix and in Product/Service, and The Cost of Bullying campaign, which encourages the issuance and use of coins for donation purposes, won this year’s Grand Prix in Public Service Advertising.
In addition, Dear My Hero will represent this year’s Busan International Advertising Festival not only by winning the Grand Prix in Public Service Advertising Healthcare out of a total of 15 categories but also receiving Silver in three categories: PR / Vehicles, Outdoor / Ambient, Outdoor / Vehicles.
Before winning the Busan International Advertising Festival, Dear My Hero won three awards from Germany’s ‘2022 Red Dot Award’, a world‒class design award in August. The demanding judges, the global design experts, gave it the Red Dot Award in Advertising / Out of home & Ambient, Interface & User Experience Design / Health Solutions, and Film & Animation / Corporate Films.
As is well known, the Red Dot Award is a design‒related award given by the Design Center Nordheim Westphalia, Germany, and is considered one of the world’s three major design awards, along with IDEA in the US and iF Design Awards in Germany. This award is famous for awarding innovative and creative works in various fields such as product, visual design, architecture, space, and video every year. In addition to Dear My Hero, this year, Hyundai Staria and Kia EV6 also won the Grand Prize in Product Design, respectively, and the Genesis GV60 was crowned Winner in Product Design. The automaker proved its global design competitiveness once again by winning four Best of the Bests and eight Winners for various designs of its vehicles, architecture, and space.
The Busan International Advertising Festival, the biggest advertising festival in Korea, and the Red Dot Award, a world‒renowned design award, gave the Hyundai Motor Group’s Dear My Hero the awards for good reasons; it highlighted the social necessity for eco‒friendly hydrogen energy technology. It has indeed communicated with many people, achieving various results.
Dear My Hero shows how an eco‒friendly hydrogen cleaning truck with various advantages improves the working environment of sanitation workers. After showing the various problems workers face in the process of work, the campaign highlights the benefits of new technology by presenting the working environment that has been changed safely and cleanly through hydrogen cleaning trucks. Instead of explaining green technology that may sound complicated, the automaker naturally demonstrated its benefits through the lives of our neighbors.
The video first introduced the poor working conditions of the workers to make it easier to understand the positive effects of hydrogen cleaning trucks; The large amount of dust generated by the vehicle was threatening their respiratory health, and sharp objects in the trash also injured their fingers.
Then the campaign shows that one of the many causes of their poor working conditions is their cleaning trucks. A cleaning truck equipped with a large internal combustion engine of 6,000cc or more emits a large amount of exhaust gas, dust, and heat, and these workers have to use it for hours, non‒stop. In fact, many sanitation workers behind cleaning trucks are exposed to higher amounts of dust than miners, based on the research conducted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and the temperature of the rear body of the truck reaches 54℃ while it collects garbage.
Another risk factor is that the noise from the engine (the engine speed must always be kept high in order to operate the equipment) and the garbage compactor makes it difficult for workers to communicate while working; many citizens do not welcome the noise at night, either.
Next, the hydrogen‒cleaning trucks operate the vehicle using the electrical energy their fuel cell system produces from the chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. Since it does not emit exhaust gas, there is no dust rising from the ground as it heats up. Rather, it emits clean water and clean air to the outside during this process. It is a better working environment for sanitation workers who suffer from the heat of engines and exhaust gases.
Because the hydrogen cleaning truck is driven by an electric motor, it produces less noise and vibration. The overall noise level of the hydrogen cleaning truck is about 60% of that of an internal combustion engine cleaning truck, so it does not disturb the neighbors even at dawn. Of course, the workers feel less tired while driving. Dear My Hero conveys the advantages of such a hydrogen cleaning truck through a comment from a worker: “it does not generate exhaust gas, which is good for both us and citizens.”
In addition, the hydrogen cleaning truck housed a simple washbasin for workers. This idea, using the characteristics of hydrogen electric vehicles that emit clean air and water, solves the problem of difficulty in washing away the dirt on the body while they collect garbage. Many say that Dear My Hero shows love for humanity.
As can be seen from the video, Dear My Hero introduces eco‒friendly new technologies with stories from our neighbors. It quickly brought empathy to people and generated the most response among Hyundai Motor Group’s Big Campaigns, both inside and outside Korea. It recorded 43.81 million views (as of February 2022) on Hyundai Motor Group’s official channel alone ‒ about 22.23 million in Korea and over 21.57 million overseas ‒ and received 110,000 likes and comments. The analysis showed that viewers in various countries strongly sympathize with Dear My Hero. English video subscribers accounted for 38% in Latin America, 30% in Europe, and 15% in North America, while Korean videos accounted for 43% of Asian viewers outside Korea.
The YouTube channel was full of comments praising Hyundai Motor Group’s eco‒friendly hydrogen energy technology and the good influence of the big campaign. One viewer said, “I have realized how much the hydrogen electric vehicle could change our world. Can’t wait to see them again”, showing expectations for a hydrogen society. Another viewer said, “I hope the hydrogen cleaning truck will make things easier for the workers. I am also very grateful to Hyundai Motor Company for their consideration.”
Some viewers said the campaign raised our awareness of the work environment of sanitation workers. One viewer said, “I am so grateful to those workers who silently do their best regardless of the weather. If Hyundai Motor Group can change their working environment in an eco‒friendly way, it will greatly help them.”
Major Korean media also covered Dear My Hero; Various media outlets such as YTN, MBN, Channel A, JoongAng Ilbo, Financial News, and Herald Economics published a total of 123 articles, and some were released on their cover pages. This is because many people have realized that green technology can improve the global environment and bring positive changes to our society. In addition, this campaign showed how our society could develop by introducing new technologies and suggesting a new agenda.
Hyundai Motor Group’s Big campaigns so far has won numerous awards at global advertising festivals; Going Home, the first virtual reality(VR) Big campaign for those who have lost their homeland, received a Short List in Media at the 2016 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and the Asia Pacific region. It also won a silver prize in Interactive at the 2016 ADFEST Award.
One Big campaign, Chatty School Bus, which was released the following year, was awarded a bronze medal at the 2017 Cannes International Advertising Festival for its warm story of a school bus with transparent LED touch display technology for deaf children. Another Big campaign, The Quiet Taxi for deaf drivers, showcased the Audio‒Tactile Conversion (ATC) technology that converts driving information into visual and tactile sense, and it won the Silver Prize at the 2019 Cannes International Advertising Festival, the Bronze Award at the 2019 New York Festival Advertising Award, and the Silver Award at the 2019 Clio Awards.
In 2021, Little Big e‒Motion won the grand prize in Brand & Communication at the 2021 Red Dot Awards for showing kids’ mobility with a passenger emotion recognition system help children patients in the treatment process; It also became one of the most successful Big campaigns of all time.
In particular, this year, Dear My Hero won the Grand Prix of the Year at the Busan International Advertising Festival and won three red dot awards in 2022, marking an unprecedented record in the history of the company. Multiple global video advertising experts have recognized that Hyundai Motor Group’s Big campaign has brought numerous social impacts. It is also meaningful that the company has clearly announced its social role through public service advertisement.
These Big campaigns show how the brand vision, Together For A Better Future, implements innovative technologies for humans. And the automaker sympathized with the difficulties faced by each member of society, including refugees, deaf people, child patients, and sanitation workers, and manifested its vision through its technology to help them. In the future, the Hyundai Motor Group plans to pay attention to new technologies and make ceaseless efforts to spread the influence of the Big Campaign to all parts of society.
HMG Journal Operation Team
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