Kia began 2021 with a show starring 303 drones that unveiled their new logo: The previous one (an oval with the brand name in the middle) disappeared to make way for a more modern and minimalist emblem in which only the word Kia appears. There is only one problem with this bet: almost two years later, there are many who are still confused with that design. so much that they wonder what brand is KN.
Twitter user Ashwinn Krishnaswamy has closely followed the searches that were made in Google with the words: “KN car”, where the ‘N’ would be backwards, the result of the combination between the ‘I’ and the ‘A’. He noted that they started to increase significantly from March 2021, two months after Kia unveiled its new logo. A trend that became more acute from the summer, at which time the models with the new emblem became more common.
“KN car”
The figures of Google Trends They reveal that it is not something specific: In the United States, every month about 30,000 people search for what is “KN car”. This means that, every two minutes, someone is trying to find out if KN is a brand: extrapolating the figures, we are talking about 41 people per hour, 986 per day and 360,000 per year.
In that country, users are interested in knowing “what is the KN car brand”, “KN Carnival car”, “what is KM” and “KN Telluride car”. The data also show that this phenomenon is not limited solely to the United States. In Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom there are searches where the terms entered are “KN SUV”, “KN car brand price” and “KN electric electric car brand”.
Google’s behavior
Despite the confusion, the truth is that the South Korean brand should not worry (too much) about it. As pointed out from Tire Meets Road, Kia has 1.83 million searches every month, so those 30,000 are practically a drop in the ocean. The “KN” search isn’t ideal, but at least it makes it clear that people are apparently interested in your models and actively search for them… even if they don’t know they’re yours.
To this we must add that the well-known search engine has accepted the confusion and when you google “KN Car”, the first result is Kia. So it does not seem necessary for the brand to have to solve this recognition problem to help people solve the doubts generated around its logo. And there are those who have the theory that it is a brilliant marketing strategy.
