SCION OF THE TIMES

For the launch of the new Scion, carmaker Toyota has gone against the grain. The company has run no TV ads, salesmen at its dealerships do not speak to customers until approached, and test-drives come unannounced to consumers. All of this is calculated to win over a specific demographic: the elusive 18- to 24-year-old first-time urban male car buyer.

To top it off, Toyota Motor Sales USA is launching the Scion regionally, a first for the Los Angeles-based company. The first two of three models go on sale in California in June; followed by the Southwest, Southeast and East Coast in February; and a national roll-out in June 2004. The third model, a sports coupe, launches in June 2004 as well.

The absence of traditional ads is a blatant attempt to reach Gen Y buyers. “They really want to know about new things more than people of a past generation,” says Brian Bolain, national sales promotion manager for Scion. “Word-of-mouth is more important to them than an ad that is bought and paid for.”

Starting next month, guerrilla marketing, then print ads and a few TV spots will preclude the launches. Scion marketers have parked the car at more than two dozen 100-to-1,000-guest California lifestyle events, including CD-release parties, concerts and art gallery openings. Toyota secures event presence through relationships with URB Magazine and Pioneer. Scion’s Web site features music and content from the hip-hop electronic music magazine, which has compiled CDs for Scion marketers to distribute at events and auto shows. Long Beach, CA-based Pioneer North America is the vehicle’s audio system supplier; the Scion will be the first Toyota model to offer satellite radio through XM Radio.

Toyota staged “ride and drive” events at 10 locations in San Francisco and L.A. in early December. A fleet of vehicles showed up at music stores and colleges, giving people the chance to take impromptu test-drives or receive free Scion merchandise.

At the L.A. Auto Show in January, Scion featured a graffiti artist painting cars. Panels from the car will be part of a tour with a charity tie-in in the future, Bolain says.

Buyers can customize the car extensively with up to 40 accessories — from CD changers and fog lamps to auxiliary interior lighting and multi-color floor mats — via kiosks in dealerships.

ATTIK, San Francisco, handles ads; Oasis, New York City, takes care of the Web site. Toyota has projected Scion unit sales of 100,000 in 2005 and the advertising account is reportedly worth more than $20 million.

Elsewhere, Honda Motor Co. is marketing its new Element vehicle, which launched nationally in December with a focus on grassroots lifestyle events.

“The stress is on delivery of concept vs. traditional advertising,” says Ann Palmer, who heads up online marketing for Element. “As we moved into launch, we wanted to look at events where the functionality of the car would be important to the people participating.”

Try out the ‘dorm-on-wheels’

Geared toward 18- to 25-year-olds, the Element has been dubbed a boxy light truck, an SUV, a mini-van for young folk and even a “dorm room on wheels.” In the fall, Honda kicked off a year’s worth of approximately 20 events and programs ranging from sponsorships of extreme sports events and an auto show during Spring Break at South Padre Island, TX, to a series of road trips through a partnership with Primedia’s Action Sports Group. (Primedia is PROMO’s parent company.) Editorial staff from six of Primedia’s Web sites, including surfermag.com and bikermag.com, took off on two-day road trips to mountain and beach destinations and posted the adventures at elementroadtrip.com.

“The trips were executed by people who were experts or semi-professionals in their sports, and it generated a lot of excitement with each mini-site while unobtrusively highlighting the car’s features,” Palmer says.

Honda also sponsored a three-part film series starring the Element at atomfilms.com and teamed with AOL to provide downloadable Element templates for its Instant Messenger service. “Online is a great way to reach the Generation Y audience,” says Jill Grundstrom, senior account executive at the interactive division of Santa Monica, CA-based Rubin Postaer and Associates, Honda’s advertising agency of record. “This way, when they instant-messaged Element graphics would appear on their friend’s screen.”

Event presence has proven equally appealing for DaimlerChrysler. The Auburn Hills, MI-based automaker is staging a concerted effort to attract younger, more affluent consumers with the debut of its Pacifica and Crossfire vehicles. The Pacifica, a hybrid SUV, mini-van and sedan, is geared toward 35-to 54-year-olds with a median household income of $100,000.

“The Pacifica is a segment buster, and we thought it was important to go with an event-marketing perspective,” says Bonita Coleman Stewart, director of marketing communications for Chrysler.

The Pacifica will be on hand at the Food and Wine Festival in Aspen, CO, and at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival in California in June and August, respectively. A total of six to eight events are planned before its goes on sale in May.

Chrysler is working on an “Art of Driving” theme for the events to play off its consumer “passion” for wine, food and golf, Stewart says.

As part of a multi-year partnership with Celine Dion, the singer has created an original song for the campaign. She appeared in the first Pacifica ad (all of which are being shot in black and white) that premiered during the 2003 Super Bowl. Chrysler is also sponsoring her Las Vegas show opening March 25.

Meanwhile, the Crossfire, a high-technology concept coupe that skews toward a 70-percent male demo, is latching onto independent films. The second Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival (September 2002 PROMO) kicked off in January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. The year-long competition offers aspiring filmmakers a shot at a $1 million production deal with Universal Pictures. Hypnotic, a New York-based entertainment production company partly owned by Universal, produces and executes the program. Contestants are required to cast the Crossfire or Pacifica in their scripts.

Chrysler this year took over an art gallery in downtown Park City to create a branded entertainment zone where the 25 quarterfinalists got a day of intensive training on the finer points of the vehicles. “Bibles” outlining the car’s attributes were distributed.

“There is nothing like the medium of film. It’s here for forever and the approach being taken now is about owning entertainment, instead of renting it,” says Doug Scott, executive VP-marketing and creative director of branded entertainment at Hypnotic. “These events bring the cars to the streets — it’s not advertising that is limited to the time in which it can be programmed within your home.”

A View, Vote and Win competition at chrysler.com/filmfest wraps up this month; visitors can view and rate the contestants’ films and enter a sweep for a trip to New York City to judge the films.

Chrysler is exploring other outlets for the competition, such as showing some of the shorter films on TiVo, Bonita says. (TiVo was one of the brands featured at the Chrysler Lounge in Park City, in addition to Nintendo and Red Bull.) “The approach is drafting off of other brands,” Scott says. “Many old-school car companies are trying to ‘young’ themselves and what better brands to work with than these?”