Hyundai Super Bowl Commercial

Super Bowl Commercials and Corporate Lessons

Like many people, I watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. I enjoyed the game, but my initial motivation was for the commercials. The last time I paid attention to football was when I watched the HBO series Hard Knocks. I liked it so much that I blogged about the series and how team sports and corporate behavior have a lot in common.

Like many people, I appreciated several of the Super Bowl commercials, but the one I enjoyed the most was the 2012 Hyundai “All For One” commercial. Again, corporate behavior and teamwork. If you haven’t seen it, take 60 seconds to watch it.

The Setup

The opening scene is a Millennial working in an 8-foot by 8-foot corporate America cubicle. The cube is decorated with hubcaps and various car designs displayed on the walls. This guy is a car buff.

Within the first three seconds, he says, “This is impossible; it’s never going to work.”

I gotta say, not knowing what the commercial was about or what was coming, I had a “WTF” moment go through my mind. Hearing Cubicle Boy say, “This is impossible,” and “It’s never going to work” drove me nuts.  I don’t want to work with this attitude.   No one wants to hire this attitude. I don’t like the company paying money for this attitude.  This attitude can kill a team, project, or company. Yes, I jumped the gun. They got me with a great setup.

Old School 

The camera pans to a Baby Boomer manager with a cup of coffee behind the Millennial. The manager is a little balding, wearing a pressed shirt and a blazer.  He is someone from a different generation. As Cubicle Boy turns around, he realizes he was just caught, stating out loud, “This is impossible . . . .” Cold busted, crawl under a rock, embarrassing, caught.

The manager doesn’t scold, he doesn’t scowl, and he doesn’t raise his voice. He starts bee-bopping the inspirational theme from the movie Rocky. The rest of the 60-second commercial shows coworkers from nearby departments, the entire cafeteria, and then the entire office building, all joining the manager in this inspirational theme. Soon, Cubicle Boy is surrounded by a hundred co-workers, inspiring him to greatness. In the closing scene, Cubicle Boy looks at his manager and says, “Let me give it another try.” The manager doesn’t scowl, point fingers, or do anything negative.  He doesn’t even patronize him with a pat on the back. He gives an imperceptible nod of approval, turns around, and walks away. Our sage manager says hello to a co-worker as if nothing ever happened.

The hook

Cut to the voiceover. “There’s always a way; that’s just our way.” The Super Bowl commercial finishes with your standard end-of-commercial logo with the caption “new thinking, new possibilities.”

I love this Super Bowl commercial. Bravo Hyundai!  I didn’t even know it was a car commercial for a while. This 60-second commercial had what I love in a full-length movie! It had the setup, the build-up, a lesson, and a happy ending. The scene had your young apprentice and your old, wise sage. It had theme music, and it had the inspiration. The manager did everything right, and it worked. I wish I had those chops.

No scolding

The sage did it well. No lecture, ranting, no loss of faith, and no belittling. He came, he believed, and he inspired. He took a very crappy situation, thought out of the box, and came up with a solution. This guy has game when it comes to Corporate Culture. Don’t get me wrong, this approach doesn’t work for everyone, and I don’t expect the entire company to rally behind it. This approach should inspire us to think differently about the problems presented to us at work, whether technical or people-based.

You and I were hired to solve problems. We weren’t hired to confirm that something is impossible or to give up. We weren’t hired to belittle, scold, or point fingers at anyone. Next time you think something is impossible or are about to rant at someone you work with, think about other ways to get the desired behavior.

This is Nasty

Big Ups to Hyundai, the manager, and the Super Bowl commercial, which epitomizes “nasty.”

See you at the after party,
HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

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