Oh no they dinnit.

I believe I can sigh, because yep, they did. Kia took their product placement segment out of the recent Sprite Slam Dunk contest and made it into a spot with Blake Griffin. Would Jordan have needed to jump a car? No, because he was his own brand. Watching that night as the Kia was brought out, I thought sweet, Blake’s going to jump over the roof. Uh, no. FF >> now and here’s the inevitable milk it for all it’s worth  slo-mo spot with heavy groove trying hard to reach Nike’s rairified air though (ouch).

Except, this could be Ford, this could be Chevy, or any auto. Given the sentiment over the dunk, you’ve associated your car with the hype of the moment, not the quality of the car. It’s a debatable moment though because you are trying to build buzz for the brand, so I won’t kill them for that. Having owned and driven enough Kias though, I’d say the spot is on brand for them then in this case: an okay car for an okay jam.

As for that jam, and not that I can, but the dunk itself wasn’t as special compared to past winners, even though the hype leading up to the actual moment was. Just shows what production value can do. (At :04 seconds in, catch announcer Kevin Harlan’s suggestion about jumping the choir sans car. THAT would’ve been more memorable.)

Did someone say music? Yep, almost every other comment you see on this spot. Good luck finding the name though. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. It’s another example of how the majority of brands still do not get the importance of music in peoples’ lives by making it easy to access the content from their own commercials. The majority of comments seem to hate the spot, but love the song. Yet, try and find mention of it anywhere, even on the official YouTube pages for either Kia or Griffin.

The brand might attribute this to being a licensing rights issue, but isn’t it more like a licensing opportunity? Lemons > lemonade! Kia could easily afford to offer it as a separate iTunes download. Then, even if people debated the quality of the dunk or the car, they at least would’ve created a positive connection with fans over the one thing they did agree on.

Speaking of, let’s hear from Team America:

“big deal, jordan can dunk from the free throw line... this punk is only dunking over the hood... turn that bitch sideways and jordan would dunk from the hood to the trunk! F*** this garbage.” – remusjacobs

“i love this commercial, and the beat too. someone needs to find the name of the beat hahah.” – jessyouzasllut 

“@pimpinshrimpin It's not fixed. It's pretty obvious everyone was gonna vote for griffin no matter what. Also why are you saying "sorry guys" it's the dunk contest who gives a shit.” – thekiller678

“everything looks better in slo-mo, cause this dunk wasn't even all that nice”  – Nerkal33