‘KN Car’ Googled By 30k Users A Month Following Kia’s Logo Rebrand

In recent times, many car manufacturers have been revamping their brands’ images, with sleek minimalistic redesigns one of the most notable branding trends of the early 2020s. One such manufacturer is Kia, which swapped its oval logo for a simpler, more modern, slanted typography just last year. The problem is, though, it seems people are struggling to read it as ‘Kia’, with over 30,000 google users per month in the US searching for ‘KN car’ since the logo’s launch… whoops.

Search data shows the term ‘KN car’ saw a huge increase in popularity in around March 2021 – a few months after news of the new Kia logo first broke, and around the same time the rebadged version of the Kia Stinger went on sale.

It was first shared in a post by Twitter user Ashwinn Krishnaswamy picked up in an article by The Drive, with some users commenting on how the rebranding may have been almost too successful, with Kia having “completely reinvented and distanced itself from its very lame and conservative former self”. Others wondered if ‘KN car’ Googlers would have even searched had they known the car was a Kia in the first place?

Kia may well know this is the case already, as one search of ‘KN car’ gives Kia as the top result. The brand might even consider paying to rank for some other search terms, too, given that multiple Reddit users have also asked the community what ‘KM cars’ are, too. Maybe a slight space between the I and the A in the logo could have avoided all this?