Kia

Kia Motors, better known as Kia, is a South Korean automobile manufacturer.

2009 commercials
In spring 2009, Kia released a commercial which featured life-sized hamsters (involving both live-action costuming and CGI). The commercial shows the hamsters running in hamster wheels where cars usually traverse (in a garage, on the road and highway); then, on one street full of active hamster wheels, a red Kia Soul, piloted by similarly life-sized hamsters, pulls to the stop light, surprising the hamster in the wheel nearest to the light to the right of the vehicle. The songs playing from the stereo of the car in versions of the ad are "Do What You Do" by Marz featuring Pack and Mumiez and "Fort Knox" by Goldfish.

2010 commercial
In July 2010, Kia released another commercial featuring anthropomorphic hamsters in hoodies rapping to the Queens hip-hop group Black Sheep's "The Choice is Yours" from the 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.

2012 commercial
The 2012 Kia commercial, known as "Bringing Down the House", opens with an establishing shot of an eighteenth-century opera house. Various couples, in fine coats and dresses, and elaborate coiffures or wigs, climb the front steps. Indoors, a rotund, waxy-faced conductor walks to the centre of the stage, bows to the audience, and begins to direct the orchestra.

The stage curtain rises to reveal a prima donna in front of a troupe of eight ballet dancers. She sings, "In my mind. In my head. This is what we're waiting for." A trapdoor in the stage opens and, as the conductor motions with his baton, a Kia Soul rises into view as the dancers back away uncertainly.

The prima donna notices the car and performs a double-take, breaking off singing just before the conductor pulls his face away, revealing he is an anthropomorphic hamster who has been wearing a mask. The conductor gestures dramatically towards one of the highest boxes at the side of the theatre, from which theatrical lasers have begun emitting. In the box, another hamster operates DJ equipment, and the theatre is filled by the sound of Axwell's remix of "In My Mind", the track by Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl.

Three hamsters take the stage and begin to break dance. The uncertain ballet dancers back away, but eventually follow the hamsters' lead. Reaction from the audience is mixed. Most do not know what to make of the spectacle. The hamsters continue to dance, and, as the beams from a full-blown laser-show erupt from the stage, the audience rises in appreciation and also dances. In slow motion, the DJ stage dives from the opera box.

With the three dancing hamsters in the car, the Kia's start button is pressed. It is shown flying over the audience and traversing outer space encapsulated in streaks of light, suggesting some form of faster-than-light drive has been engaged. The hamster in the front passenger seat makes leaping dolphin motions with his paw, leaving an oscillating trail of light in its wake, as the Kia vanishes into the starry distance.

Behind the scenes
"Bringing Down The House" was the work of advertising agency David & Goliath and post production company Method Studios. The commercial was shot on location in Prague, in the Czech Republic. (The opera house exterior was the Rudolfinum, whilst the interior was the Musical Theatre Karlín.)

2016 commercials
Kia hamsters join a guitar player in a park and an impromptu multicultural folk music gather ensues.