The landscape of automotive marketing continues to move more toward social media content creators and influencers, and the suits in Kia’s marketing department seem to be some of the most forward-thinking and eager to adapt. Today, Kia America launched a first-of-its-kind creator car configurator on TikTok, just as discussions of outlawing the popular social media app in the U.S. are getting serious. Regardless of the future of TikTok, this new configurator idea to promote the redesigned Kia K4 is gimmicky, yes, but also quite cool. Head to the Kia USA TikTok page and tap the link in Kia’s bio or just click here and you’ll see what I mean.
To configure your ideal Kia K4 through the TikTok “Creator Car Configurator,” click the link in Kia’s bio, and tap the start button. Step one is selecting which K4 trim level you would like to configure. To do this, you swipe vertically through some of the smoothest augmented reality animations I’ve ever seen, with my favorite being the trippy animations done by @sirwrender for the K4 EX. Once you choose a trim, tap the heart button at the bottom of the screen and click next to then select your color. Same deal here, swipe vertically to scroll through the different colors, each with unique and pretty friggin’ cool creator-made animations. I can’t pick a favorite animation for the color selection, but it’s between @Sirwrender’s Deep Sea Blue animation and @hallietut’s wild animation/ASMR for Aurora Black Pearl. Pick your favorite, heart it, and go to interior, where there’s even a two-tone red-and-black option.
Once you’ve configured your car, Kia automatically creates a CGI walkaround video showing off the details of your personally configured K4 that can be shared on social media. Kia collaborated with eight popular creators to produce the videos, and each one really knocked it out of the proverbial park. It’s encouraging to see a big company commissioning these independent artists to work their magic, and ideally make some good money while doing so. It’s a shame that the U.S. government is threatening to outlaw the platform that hosts this snazzy tech, but I suppose we should be used to the government ruining all the fun.
