Will Twitter for Gas

Hyundai kicked off its summer-long Gas Lock promotion yesterday with some PR high-jinks. Via Twitter (and radio spots), the Korean carmaker revealed the location of gas stations in Queens, NY, Chicago, and Los Angeles where for a few hours, folks could purchase regular old 87-octane gas for $1.49/gallon. Given that I cut myself off at half a tank in L.A. two days ago with regular just under $3/gallon, I sorta wish I’d been a bit more Twitter-obsessive on this one.

When I was working with Jalopnik in 2008, it was pretty clear that Hyundai, among the newer automakers to come to the U.S., had a good Web 2.0 outreach strategy. Makes sense, as many of the company’s cars appeal to younger consumers—even the upscale Genesis and Genesis Coupe, which at less than $40,000 can be interpreted as rear-wheel drive luxe for the Ramen set. I’ll never forget the confession of pure car lust I witnessed from one of the (young) Jalop bloggers when he was reviewing video of the Coupe performing burnouts at the New York Auto Show: “I so want one of those.”

Hyundai’s Twitter feed is pretty fresh—it’s nowhere near Aston Kucther territory yet (not even 1,000 followers, as of today). But compositionally, it’s shockingly sophisticated for an automaker (or a PR firm that caters to an automaker): highly conversant with the jagged haiku that Twitter-ease has become, although not quite the mesmerizing Dada practiced by Twitter ninjas, like Ana Marie Cox.

However, according to Autoblog, the Gas Lock stunt caused petrol-mobs to form at the participating stations, which indicates that either some serious re-tweeting was going on, or that the link-economy picked up rapidly on what Hyundai was doing—or that local radio advertising, the most auto-oriented of all advertising forms, was the real, um…driver of the event.

This isn’t at the level of an HBR case study yet, but Twitter is definitely becoming a way that carmakers reach consumers. Expect that to continue as the industry landscape is remade over the next few years.

UPDATE: Hyundai tells me they pumped 4,200 gallons of gas in New York. If they did something similar in the other two cities, then they gave away around $19,000 in regular. Which of course proves that giving away free gas is an extremely cost-effective way of promoting a brand. If the pophets of oil doom are right, however, this may be one of the last times that a carmaker will be able to pull this off. Maybe GM and Chrysler should consider Gas Lock promos of their own, as part of post-Chapter 11 marketing strategies. Because the era of cheap gas giveaways is coming to an end!