A brand that inspires
Kia is one of the most recognizable and successful car brands worldwide, showing the way forward to consumers in the movement and mobility industry. The company has evolved from being only a car manufacturer to a brand that is offering time and space for consumers to get inspired while being on the move via its evolving technology, services, and mobility solutions. To showcase these ambitions, Kia went through a full relaunch of its brand.
The car industry is in a period of disruption, with new forms of movement and mobility starting to see the light and Kia is leading the way. With its European headquarters located in the heart of Frankfurt, Germany, Kia Europe has been redefining how brands evolve and what they represent to their audiences. In early 2021, the brand not only transformed its corporate identity but reinvented the core of the brand strategy, putting customers at the center and covering a wider range of mobility needs to simplify their journey. This was a dramatic change from where the brand was coming from.
Rebranding a major multinational company does not happen every day, and it was a giant undertaking for the South Korean automobile manufacturer that had experienced steady growth in brand awareness in the European region over the last 10 years. In the midst of this transformation, the Kia Europe team was actively seeking different ways of working, interacting, educating, and disseminating the new brand guidelines, values, and principles across the organization and the outside world. This shift in mindset required Kia to think more openly and work digitally, exploring fresh ideas for internal and external audiences to interact with the brand.
Florian Franke
made in Agency
Together with the design agency made in, Kia ensured that communication, collaboration, and community evolved sustainably. made in created a design-driven language by making the Kia team aware of the digitalization of the whole brand management in the cloud. This is when and where Frontify came into the picture — with a tool that makes working with the brand much easier for everyone. Finding new ways of deploying the brand information within the organization by giving the people access to the brand, provides everyone with a sense of playing an active part in building it.
Evelin Mosberger
Assistant Manager Brand Strategy
Combining a strong eye for design with functionality was the central mindset throughout the whole process. Frontify helps the European team at Kia to gather all brand elements in one place rather than having the information and assets scattered across multiple tools and folder structures. The transformation was not just about building a platform that facilitated brand management and information exchange — people also had to get inspired. The key element was, therefore, to capture people’s imagination internally and make everyone contribute actively.
David Hilbert
Marketing Director
Ultimately, it’s about building a brand that is broad enough to become a platform for whatever movement and mobility become by adding more creativity and inspiration to how the company works. We are proud to work with Kia on redefining mobility and what role an automotive brand can or, more specifically, must play in today’s fast-growing and changing society. We look forward to many more years of close collaboration and are excited to see where this road takes us.