Tag: Kia

Kia: Nail Art Animation

A car commercial painted on a fake nail

Kia wanted to highlight the micro-features of their smallest car model, the Picanto. So they created a stop-motion car commercial on a fake nail. The film was billed at the time as the world’s first nail art animation.

It reportedly took 25 days to create, and used 1,200 bottles of nail polish across 900 fake fingernails.

The trick: match “micro-features” with micro-scale filmmaking

Stop-motion is an animation technique where you photograph small, incremental changes frame by frame, then play the frames back to create motion.

Here, the canvas is the punchline. By putting the story on a fingernail, the craft becomes the message. The Picanto’s small details are introduced through a format that is obsessively detailed by nature.

Kia’s Picanto Nail Art Animation is a stop-motion commercial created by painting hundreds of miniature frames onto fake fingernails, turning the “micro” idea into a literal production constraint.

In urban small-car marketing, novelty only matters when it directly reinforces the product promise in a way people can retell in one sentence.

Why it lands: the medium proves the claim

This is not just “a weird technique”. It is a tight alignment between what Kia wants you to notice and what the viewer cannot help noticing. patience, precision, tiny details.

The result is a feature demo that does not feel like a feature demo, because the viewer is busy admiring how it was made.

What the brand is buying with this level of craft

The intent is simple. Make a small car feel like a smart choice, not a compromise. Micro can mean cheap or micro can mean cleverly designed. This execution pushes the second interpretation.

It also creates built-in distribution. People share the making-of story as much as the spot itself.

What to steal for your next “detail story”

  • Let the production constraint carry the positioning. If you sell “small but smart,” make the format small but smart.
  • Design for instant explainability. “A car ad on a fingernail” is a headline by itself.
  • Make craftsmanship visible. When the effort is obvious, skepticism drops.
  • Connect novelty to product truth. Weirdness alone fades. Alignment endures.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Kia’s Picanto Nail Art Animation?

It is a stop-motion commercial for the Kia Picanto created by painting animation frames onto fake fingernails, so the car and its features appear in motion on a tiny nail-sized canvas.

How was the stop-motion effect created on nails?

Each frame was painted as a miniature nail artwork on separate fake nails. The nails were then photographed frame by frame, and the images were stitched together to create movement.

Why is this a smart way to communicate “micro-features”?

Because the medium embodies the message. A micro-scale format forces attention onto tiny details, which makes “small but thoughtfully designed” feel proven, not claimed.

Kia Lie Detector

Most people in Belgium know that Kia gives a 7-year warranty on all its models. That is a good thing. But a lot of them also think 7 years sounds too good to be true, and that there must be a catch. That is a problem. If people do not believe your advertising message, regular advertising is insufficient.

So LDV United built a campaign designed to prove one simple point. Although it sounds unbelievable, the 7-year warranty is described as 100% true, with no catch.

Proof beats repetition

To prove the warranty was genuine, the campaign used a lie detector. Legal Connections, described as an official lie detector company, hooked up the CEO of Kia Motors to a polygraph. Consumers then asked him questions about the 7-year warranty during a live online session.

In European automotive markets, long warranties are a major purchase heuristic, and credibility becomes the real bottleneck when the claim feels “too good”.

Here is the key marketing idea in one line. When your promise is extraordinary, you need a proof ritual that feels public, simple, and hard to fake.

How the stunt travels

The lie detector was not the whole campaign. It was the anchor. The stunt was communicated through newspaper ads, banners and a press release announcing that an actual CEO would undergo a live lie detector test. That structure is what turns a proof moment into earned media and word of mouth, meaning peer-to-peer sharing both online and offline.

Because a polygraph is a culturally understood symbol of truth-testing, it reframed the warranty from “marketing claim” into “something we are willing to be challenged on, live”.

Recognition and reported impact

The work later picked up Cannes Lions recognition, listed as a Direct Bronze Lion for “Lie Detector”.

The campaign’s impact was reported via independent media company Scripta as:

  • Brand recognition: 42% (instead of 32% sector average)
  • Attribution: 73% (instead of 62% sector average)
  • Resulting in an Effectiveness Rating of 31% (instead of 20% sector average)
  • And last but not least: An impressive credibility of 80%

What to steal for your next “credibility gap” claim

  • Identify the credibility gap early. If the promise sounds implausible, spend on proof, not frequency.
  • Choose a proof mechanic people already understand. Polygraph. Lab test. Public demo. Anything that signals “hard to fake”.
  • Make the proof interactive. Live questions beat scripted endorsements when trust is the objective.
  • Package the moment for pickup. Announce it like an event, so press and blogs have a clean story to carry.

A few fast answers before you act

What problem does the Kia lie detector idea solve?

It solves a credibility problem. When a benefit sounds too good to be true, people assume a hidden condition. The campaign is designed to remove that doubt by staging proof in public.

Why use a lie detector in advertising?

A polygraph is a widely understood truth ritual. Even if people do not treat it as perfect science, it signals confidence and willingness to be challenged in front of an audience.

What makes this more than a stunt?

The stunt is structured as a live, interactive Q&A, and it is distributed through paid announcements and PR. That combination turns a single moment into a story that can travel.

When should brands avoid “proof theatre” like this?

If the claim cannot withstand scrutiny, or if the proof method is likely to be seen as misleading or unsafe, the stunt will backfire. Proof mechanics only work when the underlying promise is clean.

What are better success metrics than views for credibility campaigns?

Measure belief and consideration shifts. Brand trust, message credibility, attribution to the correct benefit, and downstream intent signals are usually more meaningful than raw reach.