Kia Motors became one of the main winners in the first Automotive Brand Contest—the new international brand and design competition was organized by the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council).

The judging panel of the first Automotive Brand Contest awarded Kia Motors in two categories. In the Brand Design category Kia was ranked ‘Best of Best’ for its strategy and focus of the brand’s overall design, says Kia’s Facebook page.

The design of the vehicle itself is the centre of attention for the Exterior category, in which three Kia models were picked as winners: the compact Sportage CUV, the forthcoming Rio B-segment model (on sale from Fall 2011 in most global markets) and the all-new, athletic D-segment Kia Optima sedan.

The Kia Optima and Kia Sportage have already received prestigious design prizes: the red dot award (Kia Optima: ‘best of the best’) and the iF product design award.

“The ‘Best of Best’ title for Kia’s new design identity in the Brand Design category is a great endorsement of the creative and professional work done by our entire international design team.  The latest awards conferred on the Sportage and Optima, and the very first one to go to our latest model, the Rio, reflect the continuity of our efforts to uphold our own high design standards.  All four awards are a fantastic acknowledgement of our strategy to position design as a core Kia brand promise,” said Peter Schreyer, Chief Design Officer at Kia.

The contest’s organizer, the Rat für Formgebung (German Design Council) was founded in 1953 as an initiative of the German Federal Parliament, and today counts among the world’s leading centers of excellence for communication and knowledge transfer of everything about design.

In addition, it is known now that Kia denies the fact of ordering the ads with pedophilic hints. The ads received two Cannes awards on this year Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity but the ads caused scandal and it turned out in the end that it was fake. The judging panel is banning agency creatives from next year’s festival after withdrawing  two Lions from the independent Brazilian agency Moma Propaganda, which it won at the Cannes awards for apparently fake ads for Kia Motors Brazil, says Ad Age.