Hyundai Think Tank is a gated customer outreach community that attempts to bring current customers and potential customers together and give them an opportunity to participate with the brand on a deeper level.

There are some great content concepts on the site — video with the designers, newsletters involving both the brand and Think Tankers, and updates about upcoming products.

A real opportunity

It seems to accomplish, in theory, the goal of being more participatory as a brand. If you look at the Google trends for the automotive vertical, you can see clearly that brand interaction has plateaued. Hyundai is right to try engaging customers more deeply.

The real question is whether or not the Think Tank site provides the right kind of depth, the kind that can really grow interest. One area where this is a clear yes is the way Hyundai is using the site to involve customers at the product-management level.

An echo chamber?

Hyundai is asking these core customers for ideas and opinions about what to name their upcoming products and services — even to the point of having Think Tankers vote on names for new cars. This is real participation creation if Hyundai actually uses the content generated by user interaction. Who wouldn’t tell all their friends they helped name the new Hyundai and feel a sense of ownership not just toward their own car, but also toward the brand that made it.

The Think Tank also links out to other Hyundai-oriented online communities. Connectivity is key. Unfortunately, those links are buried.

Some odd choices

Overall, the Think Tank leaves much to be desired. While involving customers earlier in the process is a good play, the production values of the content, unfortunately, are a bit sketchy. Shaky, barely edited, handheld videos can work, but theirs aren’t so watchable. “Membership” style newsletters are cool, but embedding them in a fancy “Scribd-esque” flash player doesn’t add any value — especially when the content is sparse and the layout is Microsoft Word-y.

And why not just use Scribd? The answer is, apparently, security. Hyundai has an extensive wall to entry for this channel. If you don’t fit their criteria, you don’t qualify for membership. Exclusivity can elevate a brand, but excluding interested parties based on demographic profiling is heavy-handed.

User-generated definition

But even with the wall to entry, the site could really work. It seems that Hyundai is waiting on the community to define itself. Not a bad thought, but the identity doesn’t appear to be gelling just yet. Right now, most interactions are coming from Hyundai tossing out some softball questions like, “We want to know what you think of Honda and potentially others seeing Hyundai’s headlights now in their rearview mirror?” The enthusiastic response from a community of Hyundai owners and enthusiasts wasn’t too hard to predict on that one. Besides, what overall value will Hyundai get from that kind of question?

Reaching out and community building

The way to build value from the channel would be to attract participation via targeted outreach to niche communities. Hyundai is doing a bit of this. That’s actually how I found out about the site. When music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz wrote about a good experience with a Hyundai a while back, his readers responded in droves with positive Hyundai love.

Heather Shin, a Market Research Analyst for Hyundai, was forwarded this response and reached out to Bob. She wrote, inviting him to publish an invitational link to the Hyundai Think Tank. He published her letter, and that’s how I heard about it.

How to do it

How about a nicer picture, Dean Macko, Manager of Brand Strategy?

Some suggestions? Make some videos that are more watchable and dig more into design insights — and let the community share some of them (right now, the videos are not embeddable offsite). Don’t bury information. The site has a Wiki-ish feel and navigability. Take out the widgets and give us a blog feel. It’s great that you’re letting us into the Hyundai House, but take away the corporate communications feel and connect the users in a pleasant way to the content. The photography on the site seems to be trying hard to be “authentic,” but 12-year-olds take better photos with their camera phones. Putting faces on the insiders is good, but it’s more “authentic” to have good, while not outlandish, photography. You’re not a mom and pop store, you’re Hyundai.

If you’re going to link out to other communities, do it proudly and make it accessible, like bloggers do with blogrolls. These are the core customers and prosumers you hope will be evangelizing for your brand.

And most importantly, dig deeper. If you’re going to ask questions of a closed community, ask the difficult questions. Perhaps even admit some areas where you’re trying to improve things. Otherwise the think tank is just too shallow for people to fully immerse themselves in a meaningful way.

Takeaway

Overall, Hyundai is on the right track. If they improve the content, their outreach may not only drive people to the site but keep them there and get them to return. If they fix their platform and make things easier to navigate, that will help. Even if membership is closed, there’s no reason they can’t re-format some of the content and enable members easily to share content outward. A few breadcrumbs and slightly tastier loaf, and Hyundai Think Tank could be cooking with gas(oline).