KIA Tasman Ute.
Tasman Town, a make-believe town occupied by Australian sports stars and the new Kia Tasman, has been an ongoing campaign supported by creative agency Innocean.
The project was given to Innocean in March 2024 when the agency soft launched the ute through ‘KIA’s Getting a Ute’ campaign.
Innocean executive creative director Brendan Willenberg said they wanted to hint to Australians what the ute was capable of.
“It takes roughly 18 months for someone to make a decision on buying a ute,” Willenberg said.
“We knew that the market was going to be incredibly crowded, so we went out a year ago to build awareness that Kia was getting a ute and grow nameplate recognition in the Kia Tasman
“We created this world where lots of the alumni in the Australian sporting world all live.
"Each part of the campaign are tales from Tasman Town.”
The recent additions to Tasman Town include Buck the Brisbane Broncos mascot on the loose or David Boon, stuck on The Lady Tasman and needing to be towed to shore by Steve Waugh in his Kia Tasman.
Willenberg said it was great experience to be with the community on-set.
“When a big film crew rocks up with all these sports stars, the whole town was sitting there and watching,” Willenberg said.
“It was great to be in that community, even if it was only for three days.”
Each addition features key Australian sports stars including Shane Crawford, Kerry O’Keeffe, Dylan Alcott, Lance Franklin, and more.
Coordinating key Australian stars into a tight schedule required time, effort and preparation from everyone on the project. Monique Pardavi, head of production, and Ruth Murphy, senior account manager, worked on arranging the talent schedules.
“Getting the talent, organising the time they can be on set, getting them to and from airports is really tricky, but we're a brilliant team in house who could manage all that,” Willenberg said.
“The other challenge is the performance of the sports stars. If you look at how sports stars tend to act, it's usually a bit wooden.
“There's a lot of amazing work done by our team, the client and director to get those natural performances out of them.”
The sports stars helped provide the unique Australian voice that Kia was looking for.
“Steve Waugh is signing autographs and taking photos with fans and posting it on social media," Willenberg.
“We also had Alexander Volkanovski, who was in the middle of training for a world championship fight.
“We had to balance his nutritional needs with his training schedule. The number of boiled eggs he went through was insane.
“He also punched me in the jaw accidentally when he was demonstrating a move. I can now claim to have been punched by an MMA fighter.”
Innocean values fearless creativity which aligned with KIA's constant push of boundaries.
“We want work that is big, bold, different for the category as well,” Willenberg said.
“We made a car commercial without even showing a car, which shows that they're up for big, fearless ideas. And that's what we do best here at Innocean.”
The KIA Tasman story will be continued in the coming months.
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