Hyundai’s featuring its new Sonata and Smart Park technology in this year’s Super Bowl ad.
As the end of January approaches that means one thing: the Super Bowl is near. With that, comes some of the most creative advertising television watchers get to see all year and Hyundai is looking to attract attention this year.
The automaker has ponied up its millions to promote its new Sonata with an ad that features some of its advanced technology and uses three well-known stars from the big and small screen to do it.
Hyundai’s spot features its “Smart Park” technology. The premise of the spot is that Chris Evans, better known to many as Captain America, and Rachel Dratch, a long-time Saturday Night Live performer, are walking through Boston watching others try to park in a spot that’s too tight.
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They do this, of course, while affecting exaggerated Boston accents, “He can’t pahhk there,” Evans says to Dratch.
John Krasinski, formerly of The Office, uses the Smart Park feature on the new Sonata.
Then John Krasinski of The Office and later Jack Ryan fame pulls up in a 2020 Sonata with the Smart Pahk, er, Park feature. Realizing the spot is too small, he tells Evans and Dratch its not a problem. He gets out of the car, pushes a button on the key fob and the car parks itself.
The three then banter about where Krasinski has ostensibly pahked the car ending with “I pahked it and then unpahked it.”
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“You unpahked it,” Evans wonders amazed. Former Boston Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz, better known by baseball fans as “Big Papi” leans out a window at the end to call the Sonata “wicked smaht.”
Teasing Bostonians about their accent has been done for some time, but doesn’t always come out well, Hyundai’s already proactively diffusing any perceived slight of Beantown residents by running a letter of appreciation to city residents in the Boston Globe just to make sure there it’s clear that the whole thing is meant to be light and funny.
Rachel Dratch and Chris Evans also star in Hyundai’s Super Bowl ad.
“Using the Boston accent as our creative hook was something that quickly became a favorite during the creative development process,” said Hyundai chief marketer Angela Zepeda with the release of the commercial online Monday.
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“Remote Smart Parking Assist was difficult to say and remember, but a truncated ‘Smaht Pahk’ caught on when one of our creatives said it in a Boston accent. We thought it was a fun, charming and memorable way to tell people about this incredible new technology using one of America’s most-recognized and beloved regional accents,” Zepeda said.