Jeffery Talks Pierce Brosnan and Game Day Getaways

Colin Jeffery was just about to jump into a meeting with the president of Kia when we caught him to talk about David & Goliath’s Super Bowl offering this year. Having worked with the car manufacturer for 14 years now, 2015 marked the sixth consecutive year that the agency has delivered a Super Bowl spot to air at the Big Game for the brand.

This time around, The Perfect Getaway, is a spot featuring action man Pierce Brosnan but the script sees his stereotypical qualities toned down to promote the qualities of the Sorento 2016 model.

Below, Jeffery tells us more, including the approach to the event this year and working with en ever-evolving brand, his thoughts on Super Bowl marketing in general and about working with director Matthijs van Heijningen on the latest script.

Tell us about the brief from Kia this year…

Every year the products evolve and they choose to promote different vehicles at the Super Bowl so this year was to launch the new 2016 Sorento.

The Kia brand is evolving and becoming more sophisticated. The products are performing better to become more reliable and stronger. So we were trying to make the brand a bit more sophisticated, which you’ll see in the production value and scenery with the use of Pierce Brosnan, the whole thing is meant to have an elevated feel to it.

Another thing was all wheel drive, that’s a big thing over here at the moment. All wheel drive is a trend for us so using some snow footage and off-road terrain to show the capabilities of the car was important. But they didn’t want to do it in your typical off road 4x4 manner.

At what point and how did the conversations about getting Pierce Brosnan involved come about?

We just started talking about people getting away more for weekend now and being a little more outdoorsy. We wanted to show it as a perfect getaway vehicle but something that’s attainable. It’s something the ordinary person can get away to. Normal city dwellers can get away for the weekend and it isn’t hard to achieve.

We’re encouraging people to get out there and enjoy the world and make use of their vehicles but in a relatable way. We eventually started talking about famous action stars and the idea of showing them doing something like an attainable getaway as opposed to something you might see in a blockbuster; it would be very relatable to the average consumer but be memorable and also have a smile to it. So it’s a Super Bowl-type way of showing how a vehicle can get you out there and you can have the perfect getaway with the Kia Sorento.

And it’s the sixth consecutive year the brand has been at the Super Bowl. How do you manage to keep reinventing things?

Every year’s different and one of the most exciting things about the Kia brand is that it’s evolving so quickly. We’ve been along for the ride and we’ve seen the brand evolve with the voice and tone shifting.

Every year things move so if you go all the way back to six years ago when we did our first Super Bowl ad, Joyride, which was actually for the Sorento funnily enough, the brand has always been fun and exciting.

Back then we used all the kids toys like Yo Gabba Gabba, Soft Monkey and the little robot and we had all these kind of kids characters imagining themselves out on a road trip in the Sorento.

So it was a similar kind of story with them off on a road trip adventure but it was a little more youthful with the track from The Heavy How Do You Like Me Now?, a huge hit at the time, so it had this energy to it and was a bit more playful.

I think over the years the brand has become a bit more sophisticated but still has that Kia smile to it and it’s fun but has definitely become more sophisticated and we’ve evolved the messaging to suit.

Was Brosnan happy to be associated with his stereotype and playing on the idea?

He was great to work with. He’s obviously a smart guy and a seasoned actor so when we sat down and first started speaking to him about the opportunity he was intrigued.

He’s obviously evolved his acting personality over the years, he’s done the action hero thing and still does but he’s obviously deviated from that at certain times with things like Mamma Mia! which was really fun and a few of those rom-coms and it was interesting talking to him about it. He was very much into having fun and not taking it too seriously, which was really cool and refreshing, as you don’t see that too much. He wanted to push the humour and you can see it in the performance.

And what about coming up with all the different scenarios? Tell us about that…

We had a lot of fun with playing with the action hero and action adventure-like scenarios. We’ve seen a lot over the years and we played with a lot. Going from missile launcher to moose, for example. It had a nice flow to it; missile launcher to moose, sniper to snow owl. But unfortunately we couldn’t get a snow owl as we found out they’re endangered and we couldn’t get one on set so we kind of lost our rhythm there.

And why was Matthijs van Heijningen right to direct the spot?

He’s an amazing guy and is someone we’d wanted to work with for years. He really liked the script and we finally got the chance. He’s one of the most collaborative directors we’ve worked with and dedicated a lot of his time to this project.

He would come into the office and really work on boards and improving the script and the various vignettes and scenarios. The whole way through he was just incredibly collaborative and it’s really refreshing. You can see the passion and dedication in everything he does. He had a very clear vision. He’d done a lot of work with celebrities in the past and there’s a certain scale to his work, which we liked. But there’s also a smile to it, which is something we were looking to achieve. And he was there with us through the entire post process just improving the entire process and made the end product stronger.

Why do you think it’s important to advertise at the event with a campaign like this?

For me it’s always tough going to the Super Bowl to sell a premium vehicle when you’re up against beer and chips and other products and you’re there to promote a $30,000 plus product.

You’re going up against other categories and products which typically do funnier work and you’re playing in that space with over 110 million people watching and you’re going in with a serious message and a much more serious product. That’s always a little intimidating. So we do put a tonne of work into the Super Bowl over months and months until you get to something that you really believe will answer the brief, move product, change perceptions and is memorable to a Super Bowl audience. It’s a pretty tough challenge.

One thing for me that was interesting this year going in was that I think there’s a trend we’re beginning to see where there’s less frat boy humour; it kind of feels like it’s run it’s course. We’re seeing work with a bit more soul to it that has come from a human place with more of a human connection to the work; a little more emotion.

And what about the celebrity factor, do you think that’s needed to stand out?

I think it does depend on the idea; it needs to be memorable and obviously it needs to be what’s right for the brand at the same time so for us we didn’t go into it thinking we need to use a celebrity, that’s never the case. We look at the brief and we work from the brief. A lot of the work on the walls in the past few months included some with celebrities and some without.

With social media playing a huge part now in the Super Bowl experience it just has to be memorable and there’s a lot of earned media to be gained off it.

The Matrix [last year] was a tricky one because if you do it poorly, you’re dealing with a huge fan base so it can backfire on you. I think you just need to make sure that if you are using a celebrity it’s staying true to their personality or it’s mutually beneficial and wont hurt their brand.

And you launched the spot prior to the event this year as well as airing during the game; tell us about that decision…

It seems to have become a trend and it’s really tough to argue with the numbers. I think it’s an interesting one because you look from a creative standpoint and it would be far more exciting to release the spot on the day as there’s that anticipation with everyone on the couch or at a sports bar or wherever and boom, it’s on for the first time and it’s fresh, right?

But when you really look at the numbers around the Super Bowl with social media and digital now, the return on investment is really there. The visits ramp up the week before and even 10 days before. The media are talking about it and you get a tonne of earned media from releasing it early, as people are excited to see it.

There’s a lot of chatter with press and online. And then it dips a couple of days before and there’s a huge spike for Super Bowl Sunday and people talk about it a day or two afterwards but then it’s gone and people have moved on.

From a creative standpoint the first few years of this I was really reluctant to release it early but then when you actually look at the numbers and what’s best for the brand you just get so much more out of getting it out there.