Hyundai and Innocean Do Another Dumb Way To Die

Last year in the final scramble to produce an award-winning entry for Cannes, Innocean Europe released the controversial suicide-by-exhaust-fumes film ”Pipe Job” for the Hyundai ix35. You know, the suicide-by-car idea that is officially older than dirt, or least already done back in 1997. Unfortunately for the agency, not only was the film plagiarism of an idea that had been done at least four times previously, but its crass subject matter caused nothing less than a mass-media storm of critique and outrage.

That in its turn caused Hyundai to distance itself from its wholly-owned agency, and the agency to play a losing game of Whack-A-Mole in its attempts to eradicate all evidence of the film from the Internets. (Good luck with getting that toothpaste back in the tube)
In the aftermath of all the commotion, the agency leadership that approved the film remained unchanged.

And this year, they’re back again with other dumb ways to die. You know, the adorable animated deaths that won practically everything in Cannes. Innocean’s latest Cannes contender is the animated film ”Hyundai A World Of Limits”.
It too tackles the problem of death, but it does it in a manner that bears a striking resemblance to last year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner from McCann Melbourne, ”Dumb Ways To Die”.
 

Fortunately for Innocean, this year’s film has sailed under the radar of the advertising industry. And since its release on YouTube at the end of March, it’s garnered less than 1500 views. Sad. That is until now.

HYUNDAI - A World Without Limits It’s not that this film could stir up the emotional outrage that last year’s film did. It’s not about suicide. But the fact that the agency’s account and creative leadership are unable to push an original idea through their creative process begs the question if Hyundai shouldn’t be working with an agency that can.

Metro Trains Melbourne & Tangerine Kitty - Dumb Ways to Die (PSA)  was posted in 2012 here in adland's commercial archive.