Love Those Hamstars

Hats off to the Kia marketing people. The Little Woman and I rented a Kia Soul (Great name, by the way) and were pleasantly surprised at what a nice car they produced. It runs great, has most of the bells and whistles, and gets good mileage. What about that beautiful boxy design by Ralph, the engineer who was punished for goofing off, so he could only use a T-square to design the body. Right. But the Monthly Rave is really about their advertising program.
Remember the Kia commercial? Hamsters squeaking around town on the hamster wheels, then the Kia Hamstars roll through town, the music playing and they are cool. The entire vid contains no verbiage, just shows us how awesome it would be to drive a Soul.
Now you see the little boxes everywhere! They sold Souls like crazy. No, they didn't sell their souls, they sold their Souls. Forget it.
How do they do that? Imagine bright idea people sitting around a conference table, and they float different inspirations to each other. "No, that's dumb. That's silly. Wait. Hamsters driving our car and looking really cool? Okay!"
Yet marketing people pull it off, usually quite well. Jack, of Jack in the Box fame with his white plastic spherical head and wearing a suit, is cool. I cannot figure out why, but I love the guy. The Geico gecko, pretty cool. The Burger King plastic King? Really, really creepy. One commercial has him appearing in some kids' bedroom, and it looks like something from 'Psycho.' A swing and a miss on that one, people!
More? the Geico caveman. Pretty cool, but worn out. Flo of Progressive Insurance fame? Sometimes she pulls it off and sometimes she just doesn't. Budweiser rocks with Clydesdales, the lizards, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and on and on.
Anyway, let's give it up to Kia, the little guys who elbowed their way into the auto arena, (not an easy task!)using the Hamstars. The Little Woman and I roll around town, feeling cool, thinking we may be Hamstars ourselves. Rack the seat back and play the boom boom music. Oh, yeah. Rockin' in our Kia Soul.