In this shift, Hyundai France stands out as a brand that dares to experiment and, more importantly, strives to rebuild proximity in a traditionally complex buying journey.
In this new episode of Agora, we had the pleasure of speaking with Clémentine Antunes, Marketing & Communication Director at Hyundai France. She shared a vision that breaks with convention — where automotive marketing moves away from tech specs and leans into emotion, education, and user experience.
- How do you build engagement around such a high-stakes purchase as a car?
- What digital tools can help connect with a new generation of buyers?
- And most importantly: how do you build a relationship-driven brand in a space still deeply reliant on physical distribution?
With Hyundai
A brand that aims to create engagement — Not just drive sales
The positioning is clear: Hyundai isn’t trying to be a flashy or hyper-tech brand. It positions itself as a relationship-driven brand, focused on building long-term, accessible, and meaningful connections with customers — current and future.
As Clémentine puts it, the brand must be present before the purchase even begins — where desires are shaped and needs emerge. In this context, marketing is no longer about listing features or hyping up performance. It’s about storytelling, reassurance, and guidance.
That’s why Hyundai France invests in more narrative, educational, and human content:
- Immersive formats (videos, podcasts, social stories)
- On-the-ground events to meet local communities
- A strong commitment to promoting brand values, especially around energy transition
“You need to make people fall in love with the brand before they even consider buying a car. That’s where preference is born.”
— Clémentine Antunes
This mindset shapes a more human and conversational communication strategy — where the goal isn’t just to sell, but to become a trusted reference in a highly competitive market.
Omnichannel as a driver of accessibility
The automotive path-to-purchase remains one of the most complex in retail: long, high-stakes, decentralized, and often fragmented between brand, dealer, financing, and after-sales.
For Hyundai France, the challenge is to make this journey clearer, smoother, and more unified, without compromising the richness of the physical network.
“Digital doesn’t replace the dealership. It prepares the visit, supports reflection, reassures, and simplifies,” explains Clémentine.
The approach is pragmatic: every channel must play its role at the right moment.
The website helps explore models, simulate financing, or book a test drive. Social media inspires, informs, connects. And the dealership remains central for finalizing the sale, test-driving the car, and building trust.
This effort relies on:
- A mobile-first overhaul of the conversion journey
- Better use of behavioral data to adapt messaging
- Stronger dealer support to embed digital into the sales experience
The goal isn’t to digitize everything — but to eliminate friction at each step, so customers never have to “start over” when switching channels.
A marketing strategy that embraces emotion
Automotive marketing often talks tech: horsepower, battery life, features… but rarely feelings. And yet, as Clémentine reminds us, buying a car is an emotional decision — tied to freedom, identity, family, even status.
That’s why Hyundai is embracing a more sensitive, immersive, and human approach to communication.
Campaigns highlight real-life usage, customer stories, moments of life — not just spec sheets.
“We need to bring warmth back to our brands. It’s possible to operate in a rational market while still being emotionally relevant.”
This shift also shows in the chosen formats:
short-form social content, in-house editorial production, co-created campaigns… Hyundai is choosing a more relatable, readable, and human form of marketing.
And this isn’t just a trendy pivot — it’s the natural evolution of a brand that wants to be known not just for its products, but for what it enables in people’s everyday lives.
Hyundai France represents a new generation of automotive brands: more relational, more useful, more connected.
By combining the strength of its physical network with the agility of digital, embracing a more emotional tone of voice, and aligning with modern buying behaviors, the brand shows it’s possible to build a consistent, intuitive, and engaging customer experience.
What if, tomorrow, brand preference no longer depended on technical specs — but on the quality of the experience, before, during, and after the sale?
Want to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode with Clémentine Antunes:
