Kia today revealed the first teaser for its upcoming advertisement at Super Bowl LVII. The brand released a single image of a children’s soother on the floor, with the caption “Find it on 2.12.23,” a reference to the date of the annual playoff football game. According to reports, the Korean brand will use its 14th Super Bowl commercial to advertise the refreshed 2023 Telluride. Updated for the new model year, Kia is increasing production of the SUV at its West Point, Georgia, plant in September, according to Russell Wager, Kia America’s VP of marketing.
However, the choice of an item like the pacifier that’s closely associated with children is a remarkable one, given the reported investigations into Kia‘s American supply chain for child labor law violations. While the brand itself has not been accused of employing child labor, and it is not clear that any parts made by children have gone into the Telluride specifically, parts manufacturers around Alabama that supply both Kia and Hyundai have been guilty of violating child labor laws.
More: Child Labor Reportedly Used At Two More Hyundai Suppliers In Alabama
Reports of these violations at the American facilities of Korean parts suppliers such as SMART Alabama SLC (a subsidiary of Hyundai) and SL ALabama started emerging in 2022. The latter supplier was later found guilty of repeatedly employing “oppressive child labor” by Alabama’s Department of Labor.
The companies are accused of hiring children as young as 12 to work in their plants. While Hyundai Motor Company (parent to both the Hyundai and Kia brands) said it would “sever relations” with the two companies in October, those commitments were later walked back, after the corporation said that SMART and SL had taken corrective action. Since then, two new suppliers, Hwashin and Ahin, are reported by Reuters to also be under investigation for child labor law violations.
Although Kia and Hyundai both say they prohibit the use of child labor in their factories, and neither has been accused of employing children in their assembly plants, whether the parts that make up the vehicles that leave their plants have been made using child labor is less clear.
As a symbol of lost childhood, then, the pacifier used in Kia’s teaser campaign is a particularly potent metaphor.
