What do you think of the Hyundai ad?

15 comments

1. Never heard of it but since you’re talking about it here, it seems like an effective ad.

2. They’ve probably paid huge amounts of money to some marketing consultant who’s told them that their ‘brand identity’ will suffer if people don’t say the name of the company using the exact same pronunciation as in South Korea.

   It would have worked better if the advert wasn’t based around insulting and patronising their potential customers; and if it didn’t contradict the pronunciation they’ve been using in their own English language marketing for decades.

3. I’m amazed they didn’t do it sooner.

4. Their own ads used to pronounce it the way they’re now telling us is wrong so seems a bit odd.

5. It’s unoffensive and vaguely witty – about the best you can get nowadays.

   Infinitely better than the creapy foot fetish sports direct advert with two guys sniffing a football boot.

6. Going to continue pronouncing it to rhyme with Sunday like in Kanye West’s *Gold Digger*

7. I can see why a company would want the correct pronunciation of their brand and it appears to be something that is becoming more and more popular for them to do. Skoda have also recently been pushing this.

   But on the other hand other brands such as Lidl have steered into the skid of mispronunciation to their advantage such as *the middle of Lidl*.

   Ultimately the name of the game is getting your brand recognised and talked about.

8. Skoda are really pushing the ‘shk’ sound in their adverts too.

   Eh. If that’s how it’s pronounced, seeing as it’s not an English word, I default to their expertise.

   Still wouldn’t want one but that’s irrelevant.

9. At Wilkins Hyundai and Subaru, we have Hyundais and Suburu

10. It’s condescending. Hyundai have used the ‘hi-un-die’ proununciation in the UK for decades and as recently as [this August](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFpEtA-lAV8), so to suddenly switch and [run an advert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8peKcSEDFB4) which presents people as foolish for using the common UK pronunciation is a bit off

11. We are here talking about it so I guess they’ve done something right 😂

12. As someone who works in marketing, I suspect it is something that has come down from on high, as it seems a bit of a stupid thing to spend your advertising budget on to me.

    If it was a totally new brand, fair enough trying to make people aware of it and even telling them how to pronounce it. But Hyundai are pretty well known and even have a pretty good image I would say. Who gives a shit how you pronounce it so long as you would consider buying it?

    I mean, most people are pronouncong brands like Huawei or Peugeot or Porsche wrong, but honestly, I don’t think they would care.

13. It seems to have worked. Lots talking about it. Even those with no real interest in cars.

14. This thread reminds me how long it is since I’ve seen intrusive advertising.

    Adblock Plus, Ghostery, uBlock Origin on everything, various bits like Youtube vanced on my phone, don’t go to the cinema, don’t watch live TV, *instantly* flick the channel in the car if ads come on the radio. Such a better way to live!

    I still see non-intrusive ads like billboards or sports sponsorships, but that’s fine.

15. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this.