Korean car manufacturer Hyundai Motor has teamed up with Seoul-based animation studio SAMG Entertainment for a kid-targeted marketing campaign that’s built around SAMG’s CG-animated series Catch! Teenieping.  

The partners will co-produce a 10-minute short film (pictured) in which characters from the popular toon for four- to nine-year-olds will drive Hyundai-branded vehicles. Hyundai and SAMG both plan to  launch the film on May 1 via their respective social channels. 

This collaboration is part of a broader campaign to establish Hyundai’s brand presence in the lives of kids, says the company’s EVP and head of brand marketing Won Ji-sung. Hyundai is also gearing up to run a month-long Youth Adventure 2025 event featuring merchandise and fun activities at a car dealership in Goyang, starting on May 1. 

Starring a magical princess on a mission to round up an army of mischievous fairies who are messing with human emotions on Earth, Catch! Teenieping launched on KBS2 in 2020. The IP quickly expanded and now encompasses five seasons of the show and an animated film called Heartspring: Teenieping of Love that premiered in domestic theaters last August. 

The pic has made US$7.7 million in South Korea, according to box-office tracker The Numbers, attracting more than 1.23 million theater-goers. This makes it the second highest-grossing Korean animated film of all time, according to a November 2024 financial report from SAMG, which recently delivered Wish Cat to debut on SBS in September, and which was also a co-producer on the first five seasons of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. 

Image courtesy of SAMG Entertainment.