Acura is using its latest promotional campaign to showcase a company-wide philosophical reinvention.
They key component of the effort, which promotes the launch of the flagship luxury RLX model, is an online video titled “Pulse” from Toronto agency Grip Ltd. It attempts to depict the blood-rushing results of the synergy between a driver and his RLX with visceral sounds, evocative words and stirring imagery.
While the ad focuses on the RLX, it’s also meant to serve as a branding spot announcing a reimagining of Acura’s direction and visual identity. Consumers can expect to see a less rational, more emotional brand rooted in the idea that “when man and machine connect, the extraordinary happens.” That strapline was developed by Grip for last year’s auto shows and is meant to demonstrate that Acura is fully committed to changing its game, upping emotion across the board.
“It wasn’t like we needed to convince them that we needed to communicate the vehicle in a very different way,” said Bob Goulart, creative partner at Grip. “It was a very clear mandate, from the very design of the vehicles, that things are different now.”
According to Emile Korkor, project leader for branded strategy and implementation at Acura Canada, the new position “speaks to the core of what we’re doing here at Acura, which is trading a synergy between what we call ‘mankind and machine’ or driver and machine, just creating that connection.”
“The brand as it stands, prior to a lot of these changes that we’ve made, has not been perceived as a highly emotional brand. But, with the products that are coming, we’re moving much more into that emotional realm so we needed to kickstart things with some more high-energy, high-impact marketing to really push that message out there.”
Overall, said Korkor, because the RLX launch doubles as a brand exercise, its marketing will account for approximately 25% of the company’s overall advertising spend this year (but he points out that the overall amount isn’t a large increase for the brand to spend on a launch).
“Pulse” has two versions: a 90-second cut on YouTube that at press time had attracted more than 11,000 views, and a 30-second TV version set to run in the next couple of weeks. (A 30-second ad focusing on Acura’s sponsorship of The Masters golf tournament also bears the new branding).
Goulart said that while print and OOH will be added to the media mix, the online and TV components are truly the hub of the campaign.
Goulart said it was a challenge to present the brand’s new guttural tone, which isn’t a “rational” story. “It’s an emotional story. That became the target for us – how do we capture this emotional result, this extraordinary thing that happens when you are connected with a vehicle that’s so beautifully designed and engineered. We’ve traditionally been a pretty rational company when it comes to talking about a lot of our vehicles. So, this much more emotive approach, this extraordinary thing, is quite different for the brand.”
