Hyundai today, June 1, launched a U.S. marketing campaign timed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, for which it is the official mobility partner. “Next Starts Now” looks to draw a parallel between the company’s next-gen technology and the next generation of global football stars.
Reaching that next generation — whether for brand ambassadors in its advertising or for consumers in its dealerships — is crucial for Hyundai as the auto industry continues to be battered by a confluence of factors, including high inflation, interest rates and gas prices. The brand’s advertising around its FIFA partnership is an example of what marketers can do to build their brands during tough economic periods.
“I hate saying ‘360’ because it feels like a cop out, but there really is so much stuff going on, and it's such a big campaign for us,” said Hyundai Motor America CMO Sean Gilpin. “When you spend the money it takes to be a global partner, you have to have the activation to really get the full value out of programs like this.”
A 60-second video features five up-and-coming players from around the world, along with an Atlas robot created by Boston Dynamics, the robotics company that is owned by the Hyundai Motor Group. Two 30-second cutdowns will debut on broadcast around FIFA programming on June 11, the opening day of the World Cup.
The hero video will also power modular content across TV, digital, social, experiential and retail channels. Along with the ads, the 360-degree effort spans ads on streaming platforms, social content, influencer partnerships, out-of-home media and in-person experiences.
The U.S. campaign expands on a global “Next Starts Now” effort that the company launched in April. As part of the global rollout, Hyundai tapped as brand ambassador soccer star Son Heung‑min, who captains the national team in the company’s home country of South Korea. The brand on Friday launched a social film series that follows the Atlas robot as it learns to play soccer.
What’s next, online and IRL
In advance of today’s launch, Hyundai hosted a series of youth soccer camps in Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles and New Jersey that featured U.S. soccer icons Tim Howard and Mia Hamm. The camps looked to engage young soccer players and their families at a moment when “the sport is really reaching a point where it's hitting critical mass in the U.S.,” Gilpin said.
“‘Progress for Humanity’ is our overall brand push, so finding two ambassadors for the sport and delivering this kind of opportunity to real Hyundai families and maybe potential customers was a no brainer,” the executive said. Hyundai adopted “Progress for Humanity” as a brand philosophy in 2019.
Hyundai’s engagement with soccer fans will continue during the tournament across TikTok, Meta and YouTube, with creator partnerships backed by paid and always-on media. On social, the brand will deliver content including match predictions, player intros and celebrations captured by Hyundai Palisade dash cam tech. It will also run a “Powered by Next” social series that focuses on cutting-edge cultural movers around sports, fashion and lifestyle, in host cities. Special units on TikTok will give the brand priority at the top of the feed during the tournament, while social algorithms will likely elevate other content to soccer-hungry audiences.
“Social is so important with sports, because people are watching, interacting, reacting,” Gilpin said. “We're not trying to insert an overcommercialized piece of content into somebody's feed. What we're trying to do is bring them into something, either culturally about the game or about what's happening in the tournament, that maybe they wouldn't have access to if it weren't for our official global partnership with FIFA.”
Beyond social, Hyundai’s campaign will live in the physical world via activations at FIFA Fan Fests in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Atlanta and large-scale out-of-home placements in host cities, stadium corridors and elsewhere. The campaign will drill down to dealer activities, sponsor merchandise, point-of-sale materials and CRM.
“These physical experiences are really having a renaissance right now. I think there's a little bit of digital fatigue, so immersive, rich experiences with real interactions with people and brands are really important,” Gilpin said. “We're trying to be a brand that's offering things that are unique or maybe above and beyond what they would expect to see from a brand.”
Building fandom alongside sports
The campaign was developed with agency of record Innocean USA with media agency Canvas coordinating the U.S. media buy. Hyundai’s business affairs team and its agency partners helped assemble the roster of young talent featured in the campaign, but Gilpin admits that the job of picking the right athletes before they’ve reached superstardom is getting easier.
“Between NIL deals and everything else that's going on in this [sports] space, who's the next generation talent is not really a mystery in any sports category, whether it's football, basketball, et cetera,” the executive said. “All eyes of the business are moving further and further to a younger age, and what we wanted to do is give this next generation talent a platform to highlight who they are and announce to the world that they're here.”
Hyundai is a brand with products built for families, and it continues to engage with families where they spend their time. The brand plans to invest in sports in general, and particularly in soccer in the U.S., to connect with the consumers of today and tomorrow.
“Building brand fandom, whether that is improving business today or in the future, it's not really a choice of doing one or the other. We're doing all of it all the time,” Gilpin said.
