Media strategies of Mastercard, eBay, McDonald’s and Hyundai revealed

Hyundai

Like most other marketing bosses, Hyundai’s chief marketing officer Angela Zepeda is prioritizing younger consumers in her 2023 advertising strategy. Set on accelerating the car brand’s social strategy, TikTok will be a key focus, with Hyundai finding unexpected success on the platform.

Hyundai has already started funneling cash away from its primetime TV activity and injecting that money into social and influencer marketing. It expects even more dollars to be redistributed to social in 2023.

Audio has also become an important channel for Hyundai after finding success with projects such as My City Unlocked, which featured emerging artists taking listeners on a musical tour of their hometown.

Controversially for a behemoth like Hyundai, it didn’t show up at the Super Bowl in 2021, instead pivoting its strategy to the AFC and NFC championships. Hyundai decided to run a Super Bowl-style ad featuring Jason Bateman, which was amplified on TikTok and ended up being mistaken online for a Super Bowl ad. Will Zependa conjure up the same strategy for this year’s playoffs?

McDonald’s

Fast food restaurant McDonald’s made headlines this year for launching its first-ever rewards-based loyalty program. The app-based program hands out points for purchases, which can then be spent on food.

The program is part of a growing trend towards revamped loyalty offerings that enable brands to capture first-party data. McDonald’s chief US customer experience Alycia Mason will be a guest on Loyalty 3.0 on November 2 speaking alongside Visa and M&C Saatchi, which redesigned Costa’s rewards scheme.

McDonald’s is still working through its 2020 growth plan, accelerating the Arches, which put marketing at the heart of its shake-up strategy. The pillars of McDonald’s marketing focus, which is informing its current strategy, include purpose, cultural moments and affordability.

Mastercard

At Cannes Lions Festival this year Mastercard surprised all by dropping an album titled Priceless. Made available through Spotify, the album featured 10 tracks by 10 artists that incorporated the recognizable melody of Mastercard’s brand sound.

The sound branding is the brainchild of Mastercard’s chief marketing officer Raja Rajamannar, who is sitting down with The Drum’s US editor Ken Hein during the summit.

Rajamannar pioneered multi-sensory marketing, the idea of leveraging the five senses. “As a brand, you want to enter the minds and hearts of your consumers, customers and prospects through all their five senses,” Rajamannar previously said.

In this vein Mastercard launched Priceless Tables, dinner served in unexpected locations such as the top of a New York Billboard or next to a dinosaur skeleton in a Chicago museum.

eBay

The pre-loved retailer has been on a journey of redefining itself in a bid to drop the car boot reputation and be seen by consumers in a new way. While most brands are pulling dollars away from TV and into social, eBay has garnered a lot of success on TV and prioritized it as a key media channel.

In 2022 eBay ramped up its TV strategy to become Love Island’s first non-fast fashion sponsor. The tie-up with the hit reality show did wonders for the brand and resulted in searches for pre-loved fashion increasing by 700% across the series.

eBay has gone one step further with its TV strategy, launching its first branded content series with MTV to revive the iconic show Pimp My Ride.

Eve Williams, chief marketing officer for eBay UK, reveals all on the AdFab show on November 2.

The Drum Media Summit will explore fast-evolving topics from the future of TV, data and privacy, new tech and the latest channel innovation from around the world. Register here to watch live on November 2 and 3.