BERLIN, 16 July 2025: Hankook, the top-tier South Korean tire brand, is breaking with category convention with the launch of its new, pan-European digital platform by Innocean Berlin, called “Live your life. Leave tires to us.”
Unusually for the category, Hankook accepts the fact that most people don’t care about tires – a simple yet honest insight which Innocean based the brand’s new strategy on. Rather than trying to shout for people’s attention, Hankook is paving a new path with people at its heart, cutting out complicated tech specs or anxiety-loaded scenarios designed to stress the importance of safety. This strategy sets the benchmark in an untapped market when it comes to tire communication.
With “Live your life. Leave tires to us” Innocean and Hankook aim to speak to drivers of all ages and to the everyday reality of millions of drivers, giving them permission to keep doing whatever it is that matters to them, while Hankook handles the thing that it knows best: being the expert on tires.
To do this, Innocean is introducing Hank, a retired mechanic and the star of a humorous new content series. Since hanging up his torque wrench, Hank has been on a mission to explore new passions – from pottery to knitting to meditation – and has been sharing his journey with the internet in true influencer fashion. Yet everything he tries somehow brings him back to what he calls his “first love”: tires.
In an initial series of three long-format films, along with several short, social media-native snippets, we follow Hank’s adventures as a retiree. Elegantly shot inside “his old garage” — now transformed into a creative studio for exploring his new pastimes — the series invites viewers to enjoy Hank as he embarks on this new chapter of life. As he gradually familiarizes himself with the lingo of the internet, he draws smart analogies between his new passions and tires — seamlessly imparting a bit of tire wisdom in a way that feels natural, useful, and never forced.
At the same time, Innocean has refreshed Hankook Europe’s broader social presence to ensure a more unified brand experience — launching a series built on the “Live your life. Leave tires to us.” platform. From key visuals showing people of all ages enjoying life’s simple pleasures — subtly supported by Hankook tires — to editorial content focused on human-centered benefits like weekend getaways, meditation, and other universally relatable topics, the platform launches the brand into a new era of social storytelling for tires.
Lars Heberer, Creative Lead EU at Hankook Tire, said: “Our aim is to set the benchmark for tire communication, and right from our first conversation with the Innocean team we could see they were very much on the same page. We love Hank, and this whole platform, and believe it will really make the Hankook brand stand out in a quietly confident way – without the tire-typical statistics and absolutely no anxiety inducing scenarios.”
Gabriel Mattar, European Chief Creative Officer at Innocean Berlin, said: “This campaign is a total shift for the category, and that can only happen when a client is willing to take a risk. All credit to Lars and the whole Hankook team for backing an idea that dares to be refreshingly honest. This allowed our team at Innocean to build something with real personality, which will help Hankook really stand out in the market.”
The first Hank film breaks mid-July, running across Instagram and Facebook in 14 different markets, with local-language content adapted for each region. It includes three longer-format films alongside a steady stream of short-form assets, stories and behind-the-scenes clips.
Innocean Berlin was appointed to the Hankook Tire Europe account in September 2024 after a competitive pitch.
