Cars & Autos | Sunday 30 June, 2019 4:42 pm |

The organizing committee of PR Arabia National Auto Award 2018/2019 has named the All-new Hyundai Santa Fe the Best Mid-Size Family SUV 2019 at its awards ceremony, held in Jeddah this week.

In the presence of many car distributors and specialists in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as Saudi media representatives, PR Arabia National Auto Award announced this year’s winners. Santa Fe won the award after being shortlisted through a public voting process.

The All-new, fourth-generation Santa Fe offers customers outstanding design, innovative technology, and the latest safety features, while maintaining the popular model’s reputation for excellent value. Since the launch of its first generation in 2000, the Santa Fe has firmly established itself as a customer favorite, and an icon for the Hyundai brand. The fourth generation builds on that history while keeping a clear focus on the future.

“The Santa Fe is a very important model for Hyundai in Saudi Arabia, with almost two decades of satisfied, customers appreciating its excellent quality of design and manufacture,” said Mike Song, Hyundai’s Head of Operations for the Middle East and Africa. “The latest generation raises this already popular SUV to an even higher level, with a product that we firmly believe is the best in its class. We are very proud of this award, showing that, once again, Hyundai stands apart from the competition.”

The Awards program also has a separate category named ‘Special Awards’ where Hyundai KONA Color Drive Campaign was named ‘The Best Marketing Campaign 2018-2019’. 

The KONA Color Drive competition invited women to create customized exterior designs for the stylish sub-compact SUV. The campaign ran from September 23 to November 25, 2018. More than 230,000 people visited the competition web pages, and 6,134 from across the Kingdom submitted artwork.

The Hyundai KONA is a stylish premium sub-compact SUV that was launched in the Saudi market last year, and has a particularly strong appeal for female drivers. For their chance to win, women logged into a campaign microsite equipped with digital ‘paint’ and graphic design tools. After viewing a short video highlighting the KONA’s key features, entrants were tasked with flexing their creative muscles to come up with a colorful bodywork look by selecting shades, special effects, and various pen, brush, and spray tools. 

Entries were shortlisted by Hyundai product design experts, who deferred to the marque’s three official distributors to make the final decision. They looked for designs that were creative and well balanced, and their adaptability to the 3D KONA bodywork.