ACURA TLX: LIVESTREAM AR RACE

Project Overview:
The 2018 Acura TLX brought a suite of technological gadgetry that you would not expect with an entry-level luxury vehicle. Unfortunately, all of that groundbreaking tech wizdary was masked by a moderately refreshed vehicle exterior. To “show” and not “tell” the ground-breaking tech, we used Augmented Reality to create an ever-changing race track to put the TLX through its paces. This digital campaign consisted of two :60 second spots, 30 pieces of social media content, an 1.5 hour livestream across all Acura social channels, a influencer program and a completely bespoke augmented-reality race helmet to project the digital race course in the real world.

Problem:
While the AR component addressed the need to demonstrate the vehicles technological improvements, our audience research had uncovered that AR/VR-related projects were difficult for mass-market pushes due to the intimate nature of the AR/VR experience. How would we make this interesting for those following-in along on social media?

Solution:
We knew that to drive viewership and excitement, we need to give the target audience a reason to feel invested in the outcome of the race. To achieve this we worked with notable tech influencers in the space that aligned with the target TLX buyer. To amp up the reach we also invited celebrity Zachary Levi (SHAZAAM, Chuck) to participate. But that wasn’t enough, to truly break the fourth wall, as influencers raced, they drummed up engagement from the viewing fanbase to unlock shortcuts to improve the lap time. In addition to driving reach, the livestream engagement also gave us a retargeting pool to server lower-mid funnel messaging driving to the Acura.com website. 

Highlights:

My involvement: Project lead, social strategy, live-stream production, comms planning, budget management

Relevant Links:

• Full YouTube Stream
• Engadget 
• Marketing Dive
• Ars Technica
• A List Daily
• The Drum

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