Lexus Goes To Great Lengths To Build Confidence
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Digital out-of home screens are part of a new campaign to build consumer confidence in the strength of the Lexus.
When you see five automobiles hanging in mid-air front-to-end one after the other suspended from a crane, chances are that you might think twice before parking underneath them.
However, that’s the scenario in a just-launched campaign for the Lexus. The TV commercial shows the lone crane slowly lifting the front end of a Lexus LS, then a second vehicle is attached using cables and stretch bars, then another and another and finally, a fifth Lexus vehicle is suspended in midair from the crane, using no support other than the strength of the LS.
“It isn’t enough to just say that we pursue perfection, we want to demonstrate the great lengths we go to in our pursuit,” says Dave Nordstrom, vice-president marketing for Lexus. “The new broadcast spot allows us to focus on the foundation of our vehicles, the chassis, and show its almost unbelievable strength. In fact, we feared that it would be so unbelievable, we invited a physicist and structural engineer to witness the shoot, to prove that it did, in fact, occur without the use of special effects or computer generated-imagery.”
The new broadcast TV spot, titled ‘Chain’, is a real-life demonstration of the strength of the chassis on Lexus vehicles, with the LS taking the lead. Shot on the runway of an airport, a lone crane is used to lift vehicle after vehicle until five Lexus vehicles – an LS, RX, GS, ES and IS – are suspended in midair. Then a $375,000 LFA comes into the shot and parks directly below the chain of vehicles, and a voiceover says, “The hard way is how Lexus inspires absolute confidence. The hard way is the pursuit of perfection.”
In addition to the broadcast TV spot, Lexus has developed an integrated marketing campaign to continue sharing its engineering story. The campaign online includes a series of 14 unique videos demonstrating how and why Lexus engineers take the hard way – whether the automaker is taking a blowtorch to the leather interior to see how much heat it can withstand or testing the vehicles in hurricane-force winds and rain. Behind-the-scenes footage for ‘Chain’ was also produced to show consumers how the vehicles were suspended in midair.
The multifaceted brand campaign includes a robust online, print, mobile and outdoor execution. The outdoor execution includes digital units in The Cube in Times Square and D.C. Gallery Place while digital out-of-home is conveying the Lexus message in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Miami and San Francisco.
Team One handled creative and media.
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