“Next Starts Now” bridges Hyundai’s mobility vision with next-gen football talent — how did you land on that conceptual thread, and how early did the FIFA partnership shape the creative direction?
From the start, we saw FIFA as much more than a sponsorship. It was an opportunity to show where Hyundai is headed as a brand. ‘Next Starts Now’ came from the idea that the future isn’t some far-off concept — it’s already happening through technology, mobility, and the next generation shaping culture today. Football felt like the most natural way to bring that to life.
How does this campaign fit into Hyundai’s longer-term brand positioning beyond the World Cup window?
This was never meant to be just a World Cup campaign. It’s really an extension of Hyundai’s broader ‘Progress for Humanity’ direction — using culture, technology, and innovation to connect with people in more meaningful ways. The World Cup is the launchpad, but the platform can continue evolving well beyond the tournament.
The Boston Dynamics Atlas robot is a striking creative element — whose idea was that, and how did you convince the client it belonged in a football spot?
The inclusion of Atlas felt like a very authentic extension of Hyundai’s business and innovation roadmap. What made the creative compelling was finding a way to humanize advanced robotics through football.
Positioning Atlas as a ‘student’ learning the game created a story centered around curiosity, growth, and continuous improvement — themes that are core both to sport and to Hyundai’s approach to innovation. It allowed the technology to feel emotional and approachable rather than purely futuristic.
The social activations — Celebration Cam, Rapid Fire matchups, Next-Gen Predictions — feel designed to generate UGC. What’s the engagement benchmark you’re holding those against?
Absolutely — participation was central to the strategy. We wanted fans to feel like active contributors to the World Cup conversation, not passive viewers.
From a measurement standpoint, we’re looking at engagement quality as much as scale — including participation rates, creator/community adoption, shareability, earned amplification, and how effectively fans carry the ‘Next Starts Now’ platform into their own content and conversations throughout the tournament window.
The Celebration Cam using Palisade dash cam tech is a clever product integration — how did that idea come about, and how are you measuring its effectiveness?
The idea started with a real product truth around the Palisade’s camera technology and evolved into something that felt naturally connected to football culture: game celebration dances. The objective was to utilize the tech in a way that captures the emotion and energy fans already create around the game.
Beyond engagement metrics, we’re also looking at whether this experience and others strengthen emotional connection and affinity between fans and the Hyundai brand, through brand lift studies and sentiment analysis.
