“Our data show that truly effective advertising starts with a great creative idea,” said Lois Miller, President of Nielsen Automotive. “When you combine that idea with a memorable and unique hook that grabs the viewer’s attention, you are going to get the results that we saw from Kia this year.”

Source: LeftLaneNews

Just how similar are the two small, hatchback-like vehicles? Well, they are both owned, in a sense, by General Motors. But what else? Let’s have a look:

Upon first glance, there are many similar design aspects between Granite and Soul. Of course, Soul has already been in production over a year – where GMC’s “Utility Vehicle” is only in production phase. It’s not uncommon to see different auto makers steal…I mean share designs. Example: Honda Insight, Toyota Prius, and to some extent the upcoming Chevy Volt. But let’s look at the facts: “Prices at $13,300, the Soul base model comes with a 122-horsepower, 1.6-liter four-cyl – no automatic transmission is offered with the base engine. The other three Soul trim levels come with a 142-horsepower, 2.0-liter four cyl and a choice of the five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. At its highest price ($18,900) you are still under $20K for the total Sports version with all available options.”

As for Granite – “Power for the Granite concept comes from a 1.4L turbocharged engine that is part of GM’s new family of small-displacement, highly efficient four-cylinder engines. It is matched with a six-speed transmission.” No word on pricing, but we are guessing Granite won’t break out of the $20 – 25,000 mark, if it wants to stay competitive anyway.

One major difference with Soul & Granite – Kia hasn’t taken the idea of suicide doors under consideration. But at 2010′s NAIAS rear-hung doors seem to be quite an eye-catcher. Whether or not they will remain in a final, practical, release model you’ll just have to wait and see.

Inside, the Granite concept dash looks more like something Harrison Ford should be piloting. Both Kia and GMC really enhance the appearance and usability of their interior compartments. Even base models of lower-end vehicles retain some sort of classy styling inside – materials cost money, but cool ideas are free flowing. We’ll wait and see what Granite ends up looking like, and how it will truly compare to Kia’s Soul.

At a starting price of $18,195, It comes with rally-inspired skin painted Ignition Orange and wearing offset black racing stripes. There’s also black 18-inch wheels with machined accents, a sunroof, and an alloy fuel-filler door.

Inside, Ignition Soul has black cloth seats with Soul print on the backrests, an upgraded stereo with six speakers, a subwoofer, a 315-watt amp, and seizure-inducing speaker lights that pulse with the beat of the music. An iPod connection cable and Bluetooth round out the stereo upgrades.

The game pits you as a magnet controller lifting as many adorable hamsters as possible into 2010 Kia Souls, but you better watch out for those slippery fishes, they’re out to get ya! The game is pretty absurd, and also requires the download of an .exe file and instillation of a webcam. Check out the press release below – and try out the game on Face Book: Go Hamster Go!

Kia Motors wants to connect with customers and potential customers via a new Facebook application, but if you don’t have a webcam, you’re out of luck.

Since the application is Facebook-based, it might have made sense to also have an option that just ports in one’s Facebook picture, says David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy at New York-based 360i. “Webcams do exclude people, though they are increasingly built into new laptops and are more common for video chat,” Berkowitz says.

Prices begin at $13,300 for the Soul base model with a 122-horsepower, 1.6-liter four-cyl – no automatic transmission is offered with the base engine. The other three Soul trim levels — Plus, Exclaim and Sport — come with a 142-horsepower, 2.0-liter four cyl and a choice of the five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. At its highest price ($18,900) you are still under $20K for the total Sports version with all available options.

Kia has been trying to make a name for itself since the early 2000′s, when cheaper made vehicles were their bread and butter. Since then, with sportier versions of the Rio5 and Spectra5 have garnered positive attention from both reviewers and fans. It looks like with Soul Kia may finally grab some respect from car buyers.

Kia Soul Promotional Video 1

Kia Soul Promotional Video 2

We dig the funky 70′s groove this Kia Soul Promotional video has – gettin’ down with its bad self.

This week Kia released their 2010 Scion xD clone Soul officially photos for the United States version of their concept vehicle. Kia Soul will have a 1.6 liter engine capable of producing 126 horse power. It will be available in both 5-speed manual and 4-speed automatic, and promises to be one of the more successful Kia vehicles, and claims to be a compact “lifestyle” vehicles. According to Kia-world.net: Kia intends to produce about 136,000 units per year of the Soul at their Gwangju manufacturing plant in South Korea. 50,000 of those are slated for the U.S. market.