Hyundai Motor launches marketing competition for Chinese college students

By Kim Young-gyo HONG KONG, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest carmaker, has launched a marketing competition for college students in China, company officials said Thursday, in a bid to boost its brand image among young consumers. The second annual event aims to give students from around 1,000 colleges and universities across China the chance to display their creativity and innovation. Under the theme of "New Thinking, New Possibilities", the event will challenge students to come up with original ideas for marketing the Hyundai Motor brand in China. In order to encourage more students to participate, Hyundai Motor's and its joint venture Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. plan to give explanatory seminars at some universities in Shanghai and Guangzhou on Friday and on Tuesday. Similar gatherings were held in Beijing and Chengdu earlier this month. "Hyundai Motor and Beijing Hyundai plan to fulfill their corporate social responsibility, especially by cultivating young people in China. We believe the Chinese college students who are active in pursuing new practical ideas will interpret our corporate brand slogan 'New Thinking. New Possibilities' in a more exciting way," Hyundai Motor said in a statement. Students can select from a range of different categories, including social network marketing, sports marketing, entertainment marketing and public relations marketing. The competition, which wraps up at the end of November, will award 30,000 yuan (US$4,700) to the winning team. The top 6 teams will have a chance to participate in Hyundai Motor's Global Marketing Camp to be held in Seoul later this year. Last year, about 1,100 teams in China took part in the competition, the carmaker said. Hyundai Motor and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors Corp. have aggressively pushed into China, which has become the world's single largest automobile market. Hyundai Motor Group, which includes both Hyundai and Kia, said earlier that it is seeking to sell 1.15 million vehicles in China this year.