For 27 years, Hyundai has been a fixture at the FIFA World Cup, ferrying teams and officials between venues and placing its logo before the largest sports audience on the planet. That kind of consistency tends to accumulate equity. But Sean Gilpin, chief marketing officer at Hyundai Motor America, has noticed that consistency alone no longer does the job it once did.

"AI is a bumper sticker on just about every category and topic you can think of," Mr. Gilpin said. "When you have this much proliferation of technology conversation, walking the talk is really important."

His solution is a campaign called "Next Starts Now," a 60-second film featuring five young global soccer players and an Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics, which has been part of the Hyundai family since 2020. The robot, which made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January with a live demonstration, will be deployed at tournament venues to support fan engagement and logistics operations. (The robots are not, to be clear, replacing referees, though one imagines the technology would handle VAR disputes with admirable dispassion.)

"This isn't a computer-generated vision of what the future is," Mr. Gilpin said. "This is a product that walked out on stage and did a demonstration at CES."

The campaign reflects what has become a familiar challenge for Hyundai in the American market: the company is the third-largest automaker in the world, a fact that has not entirely penetrated consumer consciousness here. "Sometimes when our global campaigns happen, especially when they get this much attention in the US market, it's a good thing for customers to maybe see Hyundai bigger than maybe what they are used to," Mr. Gilpin said.

The choice of a young female American player named Stella as the domestic lead was deliberate, Mr. Gilpin said, citing the company's partnerships with women's sports. The film will be supported by youth soccer camps in World Cup host cities, featuring Mia Hamm and Tim Howard.

In a market where every brand claims to be shaping the future, Hyundai has decided to bring the future physically to the World Cup and let it walk around. It is, at minimum, harder to ignore than a bumper sticker.

Original story published in The Drum: "Why Hyundai is taking robots to the World Cup | The Drum"