Hyundai Motor and Kia Win at Cannes Lions with ‘Vision Pulse’ Tech Campaign
Hyundai Motor and Kia announced on Sunday (the 28th) that they won a Bronze award in the “Design: Use of Emerging Technology” category at the international advertising festival “Cannes Lions” for their “Vision Pulse Campaign.”
Cannes Lions is an advertising industry festival held in Cannes, France, since 1954. In its 73rd edition this year, more than 20,000 works from 92 countries competed.
The award-winning Vision Pulse campaign is a video content piece that documents Hyundai Motor and Kia’s activities in pilot-applying Vision Pulse technology to kindergarten school buses to protect children’s commuting safety, along with the process behind it.
Vision Pulse is an advanced driving safety technology that uses UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) radio waves to identify the location of obstacles around the vehicle in real time, assisting the driver.
When Vision Pulse technology is applied to a vehicle, the UWB module emits radio waves. If nearby vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, and others also have modules that emit UWB signals, the two UWB modules measure the time each takes to send and receive signals to and from each other. In the event of a predicted collision, a warning is given to the driver, thereby enhancing safety.
In particular, due to the nature of UWB, which uses ultra-wideband radio waves in the GHz (gigahertz) range, there is minimal interference with other radio waves, and its excellent diffraction and penetration performance allows it to accurately identify the position of objects within a radius of approximately 100 meters with an error margin of within 10 centimeters, even at urban intersections with many obstacles.
To utilize Vision Pulse technology, a separate UWB module can be installed in the vehicle, but for vehicles equipped with “Digital Key 2,” the module is already installed, so it can be used without the need for additional devices.
In the campaign video, Hyundai Motor and Kia introduced the idea of creating guardian character key rings in a form that makes it easy for children to carry the UWB modules and attach them to their backpacks. By adding a “sleep mood light” function to the key ring, children naturally connect it to a power source when turning on the sleep light before bed, taking charging convenience into consideration as well.
The Cannes Lions jury positively evaluated Vision Pulse for securing cost efficiency and scalability through a design linked to the existing digital key ecosystem, and for utilizing advanced technology to solve real-life safety issues.
In particular, the jury noted that the key ring-shaped tag design that children can accept without resistance, the anchor design integrated into the school bus, and the concept of protecting children’s day and night through the sleep mood light function all came together naturally.
Previously, the Vision Pulse campaign won two main prizes and a Bronze award at other international advertising festivals, “The One Show” and “Spikes Asia,” respectively, in April, earning recognition for its technical competitiveness and creativity.
Meanwhile, since 2025, Hyundai Motor and Kia have been conducting a demonstration project at the Kia PBV Conversion Center (Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do) production line by applying Vision Pulse technology to prevent collision accidents between forklifts and workers.
In addition, Hyundai Motor signed a business agreement with the Busan Port Authority in October last year and plans to verify the technology by carrying out demonstration projects to prevent collision accidents between industrial mobility vehicles and workers at Busan Port terminals and hinterland sites.
