Every month, more than 30,000 online searches are made for ‘KN car’ by internet users who don’t recognise Kia’s new logo – almost two years after it was introduced.
The decision by South Korean car-maker Kia to debut a new logo last year appears to have confused thousands of potential customers around the world.
In January 2021, Hyundai’s sibling brand Kia revealed its new logo which connected the ‘K’, ‘I’ and ‘A’ letters – as opposed to its previous badge where the characters were clearly defined inside an oval.
The new logo made its Australian debut on the facelifted Kia Cerato small car in May 2021, with the updated branding now fitted to all new Kia cars sold locally.
In a post on social media platform Twitter, Ashwinn Krishnaswamy (username @Shwinnabego) uploaded data which showed approximately 30,000 people have been searching for ‘KN car’ on Google in recent months, mistaking Kia’s new logo for the two letters.
the new kia logo is so unreadable that at least 30k people a month search for the "KN car" ever since its debut pic.twitter.com/jRj25JoAPp
— Ashwinn (@Shwinnabego) November 17, 2022
US publication Tire Meets Road says there are more than 1.8 million Google searches for ‘Kia’ globally each month – about 60 times more than the 30,000 people who search ‘KN car’.
A search for ‘KN car’ on Google prompts a suggestion for Kia’s website – although it’s not clear if this was paid for by the South Korean car company, or driven by a search engine algorithm.
Tire Meets Road noted searches for ‘KN car’ peaked in January this year but have been on a decline since, attributing the downward trend to more people understanding and recognising the new logo.
As reported earlier this week, Kia is enjoying its most successful year on record in Australian showrooms, having sold 66,580 cars from January 2022 to the end of October 2022.
With two months of the year remaining, Kia is within 1500 sales of beating its annual record of 67,964 cars sold – set last year.
The company is also outselling its partner brand Hyundai, leading it by almost 3200 sales for the first time in Australia automotive history.
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