Lexus Does 'Amazing Mix' For 2014 IS

by Karl Greenberg, Yesterday, 5:29 PM

Lexus has launched a Web site and interactive platform to promote the 2014 Lexus IS sport sedan. The Flash site, "Amazing Mix," is an interactive music and video program that allows visitors to create their own “mashup” of audio and visual elements. It also puts the performance luxury car front and center.

The site enables users to execute interactive moves with their keyboards. The site, via San Francisco-based Attik, then allows visitors to mix, save and share their content via social channels. 

The site’s splash page launches a film that will, per the company, be screened at auto shows and consumer car events. A mobile HTML5 version also lets users manipulate content. The campaign includes banner ads to attract Web denizens to take a detour to the site. 

There’s also a promotional aspect to drive interaction: That element, with an Aug. 5 deadline, dangles a shot at tickets to the 2014 Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, plus accommodations and a $2,000 or a $500 cash prize. 

Early in July, the company launched another keyboard-based program that enables users to customize an IS -- choosing the engine, exterior colors, interior appointments, and customization packages around such options as telematics, performance and interior and aftermarket choices. 

The automaker has been talking to a younger audience since well before the launch of the 2014 IS last month. The L Studio is a online content site that has been hosting lifestyle, comedy and indie film video content since 2008. But the company is counting on the IS luxury performance car to be a major attractive force to draw younger people mulling a luxury nameplate to Lexus showrooms, away from BMW dealers, and -- by this fall -- away from Mercedes-Benz stores, which will be sporting that automaker’s own new sports sedan, the CLA.

Mike Brenner, senior copywriter at Attik, tells Marketing Daily that the new digital experience is intended to “capture the attention of a wide breadth of online users” -- and that the site, with black-and-white imagery, was meant to map to the launch campaign, aesthetically.

Todd Turner, head of auto consultancy Car Concepts, says Lexus’ trick -- and the challenge for others in the space, such as Mercedes-Benz, and Audi -- is stealing some thunder from the venerable leader BMW. "Lexus does have the bases covered with rear-wheel drive and the two platforms for the IS," he says, "and it performs well and looks nice. And it has a nice interior. But they’ll have to get the marketing and message across -- they have to make it desirable, and make people really want it. Until that happens it will be the 3-Series because nobody has to explain that purchase.” 

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Like to the Mazda site where the execution resides on: http://www.mazda.co.uk/funinthesun

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Coke takes new approach on the web

From New York Times; additional content by Warc staff, 13 Nov, 2012 

Coca-Cola, the soft drinks giant, is seeking to adopt a similar approach to a media owner as it endeavours to more effectively communicate with consumers online.

The company has just relaunched its official website, which now carries the title "Coca-Cola Journey", borrowing the name of an in-house magazine, called Journey, published between 1987 and 1997.

Ashley Brown, director for digital communications and social media at Coca-Cola,told the New York Times such a strategy reflected a shift in both the firm's strategy and the broader marketplace.

"The hot thing is to talk about being publishers. We have this belief in great, real content and creating content that can be spread through any medium as part of our 'liquid and linked' strategy," he said.

As such, Coca-Cola's online hub will host articles and videos covering issues like entertainment, sport, health and the environment, alongside providing blogs and columns from staff and guest contributors. 
"My team, the digital communications and social media team, has been re-formed in the last year to look more like an editorial team at a long-lead magazine ... with a production schedule and an editorial calendar," said Brown. "It's very much like at a newspaper or a magazine."

Four full-time staff will work on this site, he added, alongside 40 freelance writers and photographers and "people throughout the Coke system, in marketing and public relations."

Brown revealed some material will present a "point of view", but pieces with differing opinions to Coca-Cola's will also be published, with an additional note saying the company has a "different perspective".

Coca-Cola may also choose to write response pieces presenting its own opinions in such cases, indicative of an attempt to adopt the sort of open-minded and interactive approach used on social media.

"We want to be a credible source," said Brown. "We have a belief here that not shying away from tough decisions is a good thing and gives us credibility."

Coca-Cola's website receives 1.2m visitors a month, and was last redesigned in 2005. Brown called this a "lifetime in technology", adding: "We wondered, 'Was it really working as hard for us as it could?'"

The current scheme is a "multimillion-dollar effort over multiyears", he added. "I'm sure we're going to make mistakes, and readers are going to tell us." 

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