Hyundai

Social Data: The Key to Market Understanding

With a growing demand in the European market for electric vehicles, Hyundai France has made it a priority to achieve an ambitious increase in market share in the coming years. 

To be in the best position to achieve this goal, Hyundai France needs as much information as possible about the values, preferences, and opinions of its key consumer groups. With these marketing insights, the company can then develop strategies to target specific markets. 

Nicolas Fleisch in Hyundai France’s Media and Advertising Department offers more detail on this challenge. “Electrified models, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids are all very important trends. In the coming years, these should represent more than 10% of the market. That’s why we need an expert point of view to know who are the people talking about electric models, and how they are talking about this subject.” 

Meltwater's specialized analysts were able to assemble a detailed study exploring the ways fans and customers are discussing electric cars on the French Web. The report helped Hyundai identify the major challenges, opportunities, and obstacles when it comes to the European market for electric vehicles. Even more helpfully, the report highlighted specific opinion leaders and communities to help promote Hyundai models. 

“We didn’t have any idea who was talking on social media about hybrid cars or electric cars,” says Nicolas. “We needed an expert point of view to know who was talking about this, and how they were talking about that subject.” 

By analyzing this data, Meltwater helped Hyundai understand its customers in much greater detail, allowing the company to tailor its communications and marketing. 

Tailoring Marketing Messages Through Analyzing Social Data

Any great marketing strategy starts with a fundamental step: building a detailed understanding of the values and preferences behind customer opinions. Using Meltwater social listening technology within Meltwater for Automotive, we identified a wide and varied range of criteria customers take into account when considering whether to purchase an electric automotive product. 

These criteria include:

• Costs: How expensive is the model? What is the cost of electricity over time?
• Usage: What are the practical considerations of using an electric car every day?
• Ethics: What is the collective impact of the car in terms of sustainability, environment, and other factors?
• Innovation: What groundbreaking features does the model demonstrate?
• Comfort: Is the model silent, spacious, and comfortable?
• Performance: How do electric cars stack up when it comes to power, speed, and acceleration? 
• Design: Is the design of the model attractive and intuitive? 
• Safety: Does the model have a reputation for safety and security?
• Reliability: How reliable is the model?
• Lifestyle: Does the model enhance the interests, hobbies, and lifestyle of the customer?

Based on the analysis, we found usage, cost, performance, and reliability to be the key criteria for individuals with an interest in electric vehicles. Even better, we identified a great opportunity for Hyundai to build on its reputation as an affordable brand with models that are intuitive, reliable, and easy to use. By emphasizing these existing brand associations, Hyundai could make some huge steps forward in the market.

As Nicolas explains, knowing these values has helped Hyundai tailor its marketing messaging to address specific customer concerns. “On the topic of cost,” he says, “we created a Facebook video which showed that the Kona electric was maybe more expensive than an internal combustion Kona. But in the end, when you put all the money you can get from the state and all the other benefits, the comparison between an electric vehicle and a classic or thermal engine is not so different after all.” 

This shows the value of social listening: once you know what your customers and fans are talking about, you can shape your content to match these concerns and interests. 

“Thanks to this exercise,” says Nicolas, “we were able to address the right content to the right people.”

Exploring Key Market Trends

For Clementine Antunes, Advertising and Marketing Manager at Hyundai France, knowing key trends in the market helps to guide investments in new technologies. “Hyundai France has invested a lot in new technologies to offer to customers, including hybrids, plug-ins, and electric and hydrogen cars,” she says. “Before we launch a new model, we want to make sure that we address the right target groups with the right content. We need to explore how people are looking for information regarding hybrid and electric cars on the web. That’s why we asked Meltwater to create a specific market survey to make sure we have information regarding what people are looking for with electric and hybrid cars.”

As a result of this analysis, we identified a key opportunity for Hyundai to build stronger relationships with car lovers and automotive bloggers. We also suggested leveraging these relationships to reinforce Hyundai’s strong reputation as a high-performing, reliable brand.

Social listening makes all the difference in understanding trends and opportunities like these. With the right information, brands can know where to concentrate their marketing efforts. 

Drive Awareness with the Right Message on the Right Platform 

With all the different social media platforms in the market, it isn’t enough to know how to communicate with your customers. You also need to know where to communicate. That’s why Meltwater included a particular focus in its report looking at which social media platforms were being used by Hyundai fans and customers to discuss electric vehicles. As a result, we were able to rank the top sources of information and influence regarding electric cars across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This included the number of posts per platform, as well as the number of fans paying attention, and the estimated reach of these sources. 

For example, our report demonstrated that Jaguar and Nissan, the automotive brands with the greatest reach concerning electric vehicles on the French Web, were both active primarily on Facebook. However, each of the news organizations with the greatest reach, including Les Echos, BFMTV, Le Figaro, and Agence France-Presse, were mostly Twitter users.

As Nicolas explains, this platform information has made all the difference for Hyundai. 

“Thanks to Meltwater, we were able to work with our media and creative agencies to develop content for the right people on the right platform, and with the right channel of communication.”