|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONSJanuary 4, 2012Steve ShannonKAPALUA, HAWAII CHRIS REIMER: We want to welcome Steve Shannon, VP of marketing for Hyundai. Real excited to have Hyundai back for the second year at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. If you could maybe just talk a little bit about the excitement coming into year two. STEVE SHANNON: Welcome, everybody. Thanks for coming to see us for a few minutes. It is great to be back for year two. I think many of you may know that last year we didn't get involved until fairly late in the game. It was a little bit like the dog that caught the car, so we had to move very quickly. We were very excited about how the tournament came off last year, but with the benefit of a full 12 months, we're really excited to be back for year two. Hopefully as you get around the course and see things, you'll see that we really have stepped up our game. We invested more over the last year in the execution, in advertising we did, so given the luxury of time, we've really stepped it up, and we're expecting a great tournament. You know, it's a great fit for this Hyundai brand. If you look at, whether it's value, just about competition, these great athletes out there. If there ever was a company that strives and works hard and doesn't take no for an answer, it's Hyundai, so we find a great fit with sort of the values of that. If you look at the charity involvement that certainly the PGA TOUR is famous in general for charity, particularly here at Maui with the Golf for Maui charities that we're excited to be a part of, and I think on top of that, Hyundai has always had a particular interest in charity, particularly in pediatric cancer, so on top of the normal six charities that are part of the Golf for Maui charities, we're doing an additional element with Kapi'olani, which is a women's clinic in Honolulu. We're excited about that. There's one other thing I'd mention and we'll throw it open, is if you talk about company values, new thinking, new possibilities is our global slogan, and it's really all about that idea of striving and innovation and modernity, and one of the things that we really like as a link to that in particular this year is the quality of the field and the makeup of the field. You know, we've got great veterans like Toms and Stricker and K.J. We have a terrific returning champion in Jonathan Byrd. But if you look at these young guns, Hyundai is a company in the U.S. especially with only a 25‑year history, and you look at other automotives that are involved in the game of golf that have been around for 100 years, so we're a newcomer. And to see this field with a lot of newcomers, and six of the seven multiple winners this year, 12 of the 14 first‑time winners, it's just really exciting to see that kind of vitality, so we think that's a particularly good link with Hyundai brand values and the lineup this year, the field. So we're looking forward to a few good‑‑ some good competition here. We love this tournament. We love this location. We love the history here. We love this traditional spot on the PGA TOUR, the first one up. This is a truly unique format of returning champions. A lot about it we like, and we're looking for a great week here, and just great to have you all. Q. I was just wondering going back to the charity aspect, you guys got involved in children's cancer in the '90s. Is there a back story to why you picked that particular charity versus all the other charities? STEVE SHANNON: You know, good question, and I'm going to actually plead ignorance. I've been at Hyundai about a year, so I don't have the deep history. We can probably get that for you. But you are right in that pediatric cancer is our thing, and it's not that that's the only thing we do, but I think one thing that being in the company that I've seen, many companies have so many different things they're involved in, sometimes it's either hard‑‑ A, you don't have a filter to say what's in and what's out, and secondly, it's hard to get some critical mass because Lord knows there are lots of good things you can be involved in. I really applaud the company as a relative newcomer to say there's dozens and hundreds and thousands of good things you can be involved in, but being kind of laser‑like and saying pediatric cancer is our thing I think has helped us being relatively more meaningful in that space. But I think I can probably separately‑‑ Chris Hosford, who's our head of PR who's been around for a while, maybe after the session we can get a little bit more of a back story. Q. As long as you may talk about the field, the number of guys that aren't here, are you comfortable with that and with this transition of international guys taking time off and not coming? STEVE SHANNON: You know, we're thrilled. We're thrilled about the field as I mentioned. If you look at the quality of these players, if you look at the combination of vets and this new sort of young‑gun group, you look at No.1 and 2 in the FedExCup points guys, Webb was No.2. So this is a very good field. We're really excited about it. We think it fits with the Hyundai brand in particular, so we have no qualms about it at all. Q. You talked about new ideas. Are there any thoughts to trying to expand this field at all from 28 players? STEVE SHANNON: You know, that's something that‑‑ ultimately that's kind of the PGA TOUR's call. We have a great relationship with the folks down in Ponte Vedra. We communicate with them on an ongoing basis, not only about these other golf ideas or the future of this tournament. We haven't spent much time talking about the year after next. We're in year two of three, although once we get this one under our belt, we'll be talking about what kind of improvements we want to make. We haven't had specific discussions about that, but we'd certainly be open for it. But we're going to kind of leave this in the PGA TOUR's hands. They've done a good job for us up until now. Q. (No microphone.) STEVE SHANNON: You know, at this point we have a little history in golf going back, but this is our main sort of single event. You may know about five months ago we launched a big initiative in college football. But not unlike the comment I made earlier about pediatric cancer, I think one of the benefits we have as a relatively new company is trying to do fewer things better. Sometimes companies like ours over time you have legacy things and you end up with all kinds of different programs in a lot of different spaces, and I credit the company for trying to be almost in everything it does a little bit more laser focused. If you look at our product lineup, if you look at the whole concept of Hyundai Assurance, which is the whole sort of suite of services about what happens after you buy, whether it was a job loss program, trade‑in guarantee. We try to do relatively fewer things better, so golf is a big pillar, certainly college football that I mentioned. We did a big program where IMG were involved; this year 15 schools, next year 24 schools. The key link we make is that in college football, and it really applies to golf, too, is that just as, let's say, college football fans are really passionate about their school, Hyundai owners happen to be really passionate about their cars. Two or three different studies show Hyundai having the No.1 loyalty in the industry. So people that buy their Hyundais love them. In fact, that was an interesting thing to learn about Hyundai. You often think about Hyundai is on the one hand a very rational choice, terrific quality, terrific value, fuel economy, it's all the sort of right‑brain stuff. But people love them. There's a real passion for that. So we've used college football to amplify that. But that works equally well for golf. We know how passionate the fans will be out here in a few days. It's really those two things in the sports world. Q. I'm not sure exactly what you're doing with football. I haven't seen enough of it. STEVE SHANNON: Okay, some of you may be aware that IMG has a very interesting business model where they've done a lot of consolidation of the marketing rights for what now is about 70 schools. So there's a one‑stop shop now where historically you'd have to go to Ohio State and Michigan or Nebraska or Arizona and get the rights to be able to use the logo to be able to do on‑site displays, to be able to advertise. IMG has now created this big sort of group of schools, sort of a one‑stop shop, so we put together a multiyear deal with them. This year it was a 15‑school lineup, next year it's 24 schools. And so it includes everything from sort of traditional above‑the‑line advertising. We did a series of TV spots that bring to life that whole idea of fan passion for their school and Hyundai owner passion for their car. So we did TV, print, a lot of digital. But we also did on‑the‑ground marketing activation at about 60 games this year. So we had car displays, we had people in the parking lots, we were capturing people's names, people could sit under the locker, take a video of themselves and post it to their YouTube or to their Facebook page. It was just a way to get us involved‑‑ besides the marketing benefit, I mean, college football is part of the fabric of America, and while at Hyundai we are very proud of our Korean parentage, more than 50 percent of the vehicles we sell in the U.S. are made in the U.S. so bringing to life a little bit of that being part of America was another benefit of doing the college football program. Q. So the investment you make on each and the return you get, how do they differ, on the golf and the football? STEVE SHANNON: You know, they're different I'd say. The focus of our golf program has really been our luxury lineup. If you look at now the new Azera and the Genesis and the Equus, those are a significant effort by Hyundai beginning in '09 with the Genesis but more recently with the Equus now after the first full year. I mean, let's be honest, who two or three years ago would have thought Hyundai would be selling a $60,000 luxury automobile? We just set a monthly record in December, about 325 retail units, so we exceeded our expectation in year one with the Equus. According to J.D. Power, Equus owners are more satisfied with their Equus than Audi A8 drivers are with their Audi A8 or Mercedes S Class owners are with their Mercedes or BMW 7 Series. So by any measure‑‑ the luxury business is a marathon, not a sprint, so we're just starting. But the ability to use golf from sort of a demographic fit, if you look at the indexing of luxury car owners by what their passion points are, golf is at or near the top, and it's no surprise that a number of our very healthy competitors are also in this space. But it allows us to do some real, real good demographic targeting. One specific thing I'll mention is in order to make the Hyundai Tournament of Champions live year‑round, this past summer and fall, we did a series of golf tournaments around the country where we invited Equus owners. It was essentially a loyalty play, that we were so happy with their loyal business, we did a series of tournaments. We invited Equus owners to come and play. Now, if they happened to bring a guest who might be interested in buying an Equus, that was certainly okay with us. And by the way, the winners of each of them are joining us here this week and they'll play in the pro‑am. So it's another little example of how golf is just such a terrific‑‑ not only sort of the values and the specific and the culture of the game, but in particular the kind of people that are passionate about it are great for luxury car makers. Q. I was just wondering, given that you had a year to work on this versus last year, is there one thing in particular that you feel like you were able to do that you just didn't have enough time to do last year? STEVE SHANNON: Yeah, I mentioned a couple things. One is I think as you get around the course, just the ability to do‑‑ we've dialed up the fan zone. We've certainly dialed up the signage. We as a team did a great job on a lot of vehicle displays around because ultimately there's no better‑‑ testing is what we do with our cars, so I think if you see, if you walk around, you'll just see an overall very high standard and more sort of branding in the cars. I think another thing that we did with more time was we brought a lot more guests with us. For example, last year we had essentially one wave of guests, primarily dealers. This year we did two. Another good example of golf as a great automotive marketing tool is car dealers love golf, and they love to come to golf events. So there's no better motivating tool for dealers. They are driven, entrepreneurial guys that love to win. So if you do a sales contest and the winner and their spouse come to Maui in the first week of January and play in a great pro‑am, pro‑am by the way, all of whose players have won at least one tournament, that's pretty exciting. So we now have two waves of people coming in. A lot of guests from our parent company in Korea; from a business to business tool, we've invited some more people that have a business relationship with us; people, for example, from the state of Alabama where we have a plant. So we've just taken that time to look at sort of constituent groups that are important to us to bring them here, and you'll see them out on the course over the next few days. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|