Driving Kia’s Future: Creating an Omnichannel Strategy for Growth

Challenge
Kia UK had ambitious electrification and sales targets across both EV and ICE ranges but faced strong competition from established EV manufacturers. Consumer barriers, like range anxiety, charging accessibility, and total cost of ownership (TCO), also needed to be tackled head-on to build confidence in Kia’s growing EV lineup.
From a marketing and marcomms perspective, their current CRM systems and ways of working (WOWs) were outdated and fragmented. They needed a strategy to modernise their customer experience, better integrate web, social, and CRM, and reinforce Kia’s position as a future-focussed brand.

What I Did
I developed a ‘Connected Momentum’ strategy, designed to build on Kia’s new global tagline ‘Movement that Inspires’. The vision was to create fluidity across customer touchpoints: dealer, website, social, and CRM, to improve marketing efficiencies and ensuring each channel played to its strengths.
For the 3-stage pitch process, I brought this strategy to life through:
- The Vision: Introduced in the Chemistry meeting, outlining Kia’s future customer engagement approach.
- Experience Map: Demonstrated how the strategy would enhance the customer journey across digital and physical touchpoints.
- Real-World Journeys: Showcased three key audience experiences: an EV considerer, a customer nearing the end of a PCP agreement, and a new prospect entering the Kia ecosystem - including creative mockups.

Outcome
The strategy was enthusiastically received, particularly by the Marketing Director, and we won the pitch, securing Kia’s CRM business alongside their website and social, with a £1m+ budget.
Over the next six months, I led the implementation of the new CRM strategy, ensuring it complemented the EV6 and Sportage launches without cannibalising ICE sales, and aligned with the web and social channels. The results were clear:
- Record-Breaking Sales: Kia UK exceeded 100,000 new car sales for the first time in 2022, reaching 100,191 units. In 2023, this grew to 107,765 units, making Kia the 6th best-selling automotive brand in the UK with a 5.7% market share.
- Stronger CRM Performance: Our ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach to CRM enhanced personalisation and relevance, driving higher retention and new customer acquisition.
- Omnichannel Success: Website improvements, influencer-led social campaigns, and CRM enhancements all contributed to Kia’s strong brand and sales trajectory.