If you look closely, you can find little bits of hope for the human race in every day. Whether you watch someone give a seat to an elderly person on the subway or purchase an extra bagel for the homeless woman you see on the way to work, there are subtle hints that, deep down, we’re made of good stuff. Of course, if you’re not into looking for these beautiful instances of human care, every once in a while, there comes along an act of good will you could see from space.
This incredible accomplishment from Hyundai is exactly that, and it warms the heart like nothing else can, except maybe puppies.
From time to time, parents work a lot, and unfortunately, spending quality time with the kids has to take a back seat on occasion. Such is the case with Stephanie, from Houston, Texas, whose dad is an astronaut. Space may seem closer now than ever before, but it’s still quite a journey, and her dad doesn’t get to come home every day. Like any teenage girl, Stephanie misses him. Ready to feel fuzzy?
Hyundai’s marketing team and leaders managed to track down Stephanie, hear her story and offer her a solution that she’d likely never believed was possible. Last week, equipped with a fleet of 11 Hyundai Genesis sedans, the Korean car company took to the desert that is Delmar Dry Lake in Nevada to deliver a message to her dad in a record-breaking way–literally. Using Stephanie’s own handwriting, Hyundai scrawled “Steph <3’s U” across an area the size of almost two Central Parks. Needless to say, her father got the message from space. And the drawing secured a place in the Guinness World Book of Records as the world’s “largest tire track image.”
Of course, Hyundai managed to pull a huge marketing scheme out of the favor, but the bottom line is that they reached out to a young girl in a less-than-normal family situation to help her express her love. There are countless ways Stephanie could have gone about sending her father a message in space (this is 2015, after all), but it’s unlikely any of them would have come close to seeing her handwriting in giant form telling her father what dads love to hear most. No amount of perks can negate that loving act from the car company.
Imagine how much love we could spread if we set our minds to using available resources in creative ways. This stunt for Stephanie couldn’t have been cheap, but it was absolutely worth it, and with a budget most of us would dream of, Hyundai made it happen. Hyundai isn’t the first to use cars for messages or drawings, and they certainly aren’t the first people or organization to attempt messages to space, but for Stephanie and her dad, they’ll be a very memorable, creative and meaningful message in the sand in history.
