Kia takes Soul music on the road
Motor cities. Kia is putting soul into its Soul car with a 10-city tour of the US. To date, the brand has held free Kia Soul Collective events in a seven cities, with the show set to hit Boston, New York and LA in the coming weeks. Last weekend’s Atlanta Collective brought artists such as St Vincent, Atlas Sound, Chester French and Big Sean to Georgia, along with a raft of DJs, plus art installations and video screenings. Plus, of course, the chance to test drive the Soul.
Kia is also producing a series of documentaries looking at current hot artists, thought leaders and influencers, and last month released its first online film on Jeffrey Kalmikoff, co-founder of cool apparel outfit Threadless (of tweet Tee shirt fame).
The doc was directed by Emmy-nominated Greg Brunkalla who took a road trip from LA to Boulder in a Kia Soul, and spoke with friends and family of Kalmikoff’s along the way to get a picture of the entrepreneur’s journey to success.
“Jeffrey and I thought the best way to tell his story would be to have him talk less, and have the people who know him talk more,” says Brunkalla. “The idea was to use the Kia Soul as a filmmaking tool – basically as one big dolly shot across the USA. I interviewed his friends and family over the phone as I travelled to Colorado. It was funny, once I arrived to meet Jeffrey in Boulder I felt more like a stalker then a director.”
More films are in the pipeline, with musician Janelle Monae, filmmakers Jonas and François, and designer Jess Staple set to get the Kia Soul treatment
Kia Motors has been busy engaging US comsumers. In March, the brand went the online video route to try and prove that No Two Souls Are The Same. And in the summer, it launched Go Hamster Go, a Facebook-based game using augmented reality. Now, isn’t that compelling…
