My greatest find in the world of Communications and Marketing is the way KIA advertises its compact cars. They have moved up sales and recognition of their products in a series of carefully planned commercials.

Their most recent advert sought to market its newly transformed KIA Soul cars. They employ their brand mascots (the Hamsters), who we see working out to Lady Gaga’s latest hit “Applause”. The ad is a creative juxtaposition of both the mascots and the Car, and in the end we see the mascots walking down from the car to a red carpet in a funky, fresh and slick new attitude, which reflects the newly transformed Car.

Why was this amazing and effective? KIA tapped into consumer emotions as an insight. The ad in many ways appealed to consumers who were identifiers of “cool” products. This insight earned them over 1million views on YouTube within 2 weeks of its release. A look at the comments on the YouTube page and we find words like cool, hilarious, swag, and slick. The song choice was also fantastic because the fan-base of Lady Gaga are identifiers of the “cool” factor.

The underlying truth behind this insight is that people identify with the “cool factor”. The “cool factor” is somewhat of a “social Currency” as it motivates people to share and engage things.

In addition, the ad intelligently applied humor, which is a great tool in attracting consumers to like a product. Consumers like to be entertained, but not pitched. Consumers will pay more attention to a