Kia Canada is putting festival-goers behind the wheel at Toronto’s Luminato arts and cultural festival. As part of its sponsorship of the event, Kia has installed a 14-foot-tall arcade machine at Metro Hall, incorporating a new 2014 Kia Forte sedan.
The “arcade-stallation” was conceived by Kia Canada’s creative agency of record, Innocean Worldwide Canada, as part of Kia’s “Designed to” campaign. The campaign featured the TV spot “8-bit,” which launched the 2014 Kia Forte in March.
In the spot, a city is transformed into an iconic 8-bit world as a young couple drives through it. At the end, an 8-bit fly gets humourously flattened on the windshield. The idea is to show that the Kia Forte comes with a host of technology features that lets drivers connect to the world around them.
The objective of the arcade game at Luminato is to avoid hitting the same 8-bit fly from the television spot. Called Splat!, the game has a Kia Forte built into it along with an 8-ft. wide screen above that gives players a full-size view as they play the game from behind the vehicle.
“This may be the world’s biggest video game and it’s designed to help engage festival-goers [with] the Kia brand as well as raise awareness for our new Kia Forte,” said Robert Staffieri, director of marketing at Kia Canada.
In addition to the arcade game, Kia Canada was the presenting partner of Kid Koala’s Space Cadet Concert, which opened this year’s festival for the first two evenings. The Montreal artist created an original soundtrack for the Splat! arcade game.
This is Kia Canada’s third year as official automotive partner of Luminato, which runs until June 23. “Luminato fits with our key pillars: arts, music and culture and we hit all three points there,” said Staffieri.
