Here's today's entry in the "fascinating ways to waste money" files. For its new ad campaign, "Art Is Motion," Lexus partnered with a digital artist to create an in-car app that paints a portrait of you based on the way you drive.

Your speed and driving style dictate the brush stroke, while the color palate is determined by which part of the Lexus IS 300h's hybrid engine you're currently using.

It's a clever idea, but don't expect it to be coming to a Lexus near you. So far, the project by agency Happiness Brussels only been set up for one art collector in Belgium, though the Art Is Motion website seems to imply the customized car will be put up for auction in the future. Via Presurfer.

The first brand to run an Instagram ad is Michael Kors, which rolled out a promo for a high-end watch late this morning. And so far, users who are taking the time to comment do not appear to be fans—more on that in a bit.

An Instagram spokesperson said the retailer's appearance represented "a kickoff" for other paid brand appearances on the social-photos platform, but wouldn't disclose additional campaign plans. Other expected advertisers in the near term include adidas, Ben & Jerry's, Burberry, General Electric, Levi's, Lexus, Macy's, PayPal and Starwood.

The Michael Kors development comes one week after the Facebook-owned property unveiled what the ads would look like and roughly a month after it was revealed that they were forthcoming.

The New York-based retailer's Instagram promo, as seen below, doesn't include the "sponsored" tag expected to be seen in most ads on the platform, per the Instagram rep, because the brand also posted the photo and copy—featuring the hashtag #MKTimeless—in its organic news feed. In other words, when the ad renders in the brand's news feed it will not be marked, but when it will say "sponsored" as it appears in users' feeds.

While the ad has garnered tens of thousands of "likes," based on the initial comments, maybe they want to tag every ad appearance. Below are examples of various posts—many negative or sarcastic—underneath Michael Kors' promo.

The debut of Instagram ads today seems like an emerging social media case study in the power of the consumer voice—in this case, it's a battle between Instagram's low-threshold Like button versus comments that people actually type out.

With Michael Kors taking the front-line lead as the first paid advertiser ever on the social-photos platform, Adweek earlier reported that the shrapnel was considerable as Instagram users were firing nasty complaints at the brand. 

That still appears to be the case, although it's probably slowed down as people around the nation begin to attend to their weekend plans. Still, over the last few hours, conversely, Michael Kors' "likes" for the ad have exploded, exceeding 150,000 at press time.

Based on our editorial team's research, the retailer's "likes" high in recent weeks on the platform was 85,000, while averaging about 50,000 per post. So while whatever Michael Kors is paying the Facebook-owned app for the engagement, the fashion marketer looks to be getting all kinds of bang for its buck. 

Michael Kors has 1.3 million Instagram followers, while there are 100 million monthly users on the platform. With those stats in mind, there is no "dislike" or "hate" button on Instagram to allow people who are too busy or lazy to type up their negative thoughts. And of course, there's no way to measure how many people quickly scroll past the Kors image.

But the dichotomy portrayed between the comments and likes is interesting, indeed. How Instagram users react to ads flowing through their news feed in the weeks ahead could be even more telling. 

After all, coming soon are promos from adidas, Ben & Jerry's, Burberry, General Electric, Levi's, Lexus, Macy's, PayPal and Starwood.

Instagrammers scream for ice cream, in a good way. Ben and Jerry are getting the hang of Instagram ads, demonstrating that not every sponsored photo is an unwelcome intrusion.

Millions of US Instagram users are adjusting to marketing from brands, and the ads are even leading to an influx of new followers for the companies. If there is a brand that is benefiting from the new advertising avenue, it is Ben & Jerry’s, according to data shared by top Instagram tracking firms Statigram and Curalate.

The ice cream men are scooping up new followers and amassing “likes” more than any company that has participated in the rollout of the first Instagram ads.

Also, the negative comments that have plagued other product placements are not as pronounced on Ben & Jerry’s posts.

“Comments on these ads seem much more positive than they were on [Michael] Kors and GE's,” said Romain Ouseau of Statigram. “Most of them include mentions which of course have a positive impact on engagement and reach.”

Companies like Michael Kors, Levi’s, Lexus and GE have also run sponsored Instagram photos. In all instances, the posts have led to a flood of negative comments, but also a surge in followers and likes, the data show.

“Brands will want to exploit Instagram ads to drive followership,” Apu Gupta of Curalate said. “A follow effectively invites brands into the screens of consumers.”

In the case of Ben & Jerry’s, which has run four Instagram ads so far, followers are up about 20 percent, gaining more than 50,000 new followers, Statigram said.

The effectiveness of Instagram in driving sales is still unknown, according to Sherad Verma, CEO of Piqora. Still, “Likes” show reach, and brands care about them as a measure of engagement. On average, Piqora said 1,000 “Likes” equals 1 million impressions on Instagram.

Here’s a look at the early days of Instagram advertising and what we’ve learned, so far:

Ben & Jerry’s first ad was the most liked with 386,877, that’s a more than 2,000 percent increase from the average post from the company.

Lexus has the fewest followers of any of the early ad partners with about 37,000, but it amassed nearly 190,000 “Likes” on its first ad.

-Increases in likes ranged from 5X to 88X versus the brands' typical posts, with the average being 32X, according to Curalate.

-Ben & Jerry’s average daily follower growth went from 429, pre-ads, to more than 7,200, post-ads.

-A GE ad 3 weeks ago —an image of a high-tech engine— drew 60,000 “Likes,” but the same image posted organically only drew 2,300 “Likes.”
 

Early in the Super Bowl’s first quarter, Jaguar found itself playing defense. Lexus—not even a big game advertiser—was buying space on Twitter, piggybacking on its #goodtobebad hashtag.

When you’re cultivating a bad boy image with villainous Brits in your commercials, you don’t abide rivals squatting on your hashtag. Jaguar planned for this kind of game day action; its ad team was holed up in a rapid response social media center, which they dubbed the “Villains’ Lair.”

Jaguar’s ad agency Mindshare calls these rooms The Loop, with flat screens flashing Google trends, social media feeds, sentiment trackers, digital ad click counts and similar data on competing brands. During the Super Bowl, dozens of people on Jaguar and Mindshare’s team were plugged in, and Twitter’s people were there, too, ready to assist in moments like these.

Quickly, Jaguar needed to defend its hashtag #goodtobebad, and that meant outbidding its competitors, as well as noncar companies throughout the night. At one point Esurance had promoted against the Jaguar hashtag. Later in the game, Audi would snatch promoted territory against Jaguar, too.

The U.K. car company, however, kept its footing for most of the night, controlling its key terms while at points encroaching on its rivals’ Twitter turf. It was all part of the ad game within the big game, and Adweek had a front row seat in Jaguar’s war room. (Another one of Mindshare’s client’s, Unilever, marketing Axe body spray, also was in the New York offices, but did not allow a reporter to see its command center.)

Unilever spent $500,000 on social media marketing on Sunday, according to The Wall Street Journal. It also bought the lone Promoted Trend of the day on Twitter, the ultimate—and expensive—defense against competitors. No one would show higher than Axe under the hashtag #kissforpeace. 

Jaguar plugs into The Loop command center on game day at
Mindshare's New York office.

Jaguar and Mindshare did not reveal how much they had in the war chest, but they were ready to spend in an instant and did. That’s why it was crucial to have Jaguar, its creative team and Twitter all in one place.

“Having people in the room making decisions and being able to buy in real time is important,” said Jeff Curry, Jaguar North America’s brand vp.

Super Bowl advertisers embrace Twitter more every year, and this year hashtags were shown in 57 percent of the ads, compared to 50 percent last year. There were also a record number of Super Bowl-related tweets this year.

The game is the ultimate stage for the social messaging site, showing off how marketers take to the network to either respond to rivals’ TV commercials or augment their own. It is the second-screen in action, especially during live events like this one.

Thus, instead of striving to show the best commercial, advertisers are looking to create the most popular tweet. Even the marketers who don’t have Super Bowl spots are sniping from the social media sidelines.

While they can’t prepare for every contingency, say Joe Namath in a ’70s fur coat during the coin toss, these social media strategies are developed well in advance. Jaguar was in New York all week huddling with Mindshare.

"We’ve been establishing this villainous tone of voice,” said Joe Quattrone, Mindshare’s lead on the Jaguar social media strategy. “It’s how we want to behave and react in everything we do tonight.”

Jaguar has been playing the villain for months, responding to marketing from Mercedes on YouTube last year, and hiring British actors—Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong—who are known for some evil roles. With director Tom Hooper, Jaguar created the 60-second Super Bowl commercial “Rendezvous” and online content it says is worthy of binge viewing.

The commercial on Sunday helped drive 20,000 website visits within minutes after the ad aired in the fourth quarter, Quattrone said. And Jaguar was at its most evil when tweeting at the auto brand Maserati after its spot showed the new Ghibli car.

“Did you know that Ghibli means hot air,” Jaguar’s social media team tweeted. With 179 retweets, that was one of their highest performing messages for the brand.

“That’s the voice we’ve been cultivating the past three months,” Quattrone said.

Jaguar also took on Audi. Late in the game, prices started coming down on Twitter, and Jaguar was able to buy in places it was not expecting, Quattrone said. “We made a couple of key decisions about where to place money,” he said. “We upped the level of investment on conquesting Audi keyword terms.”

Besides car brands, Jaguar was also in a back and forth with totally unrelated companies like Tide and Tidy Cats.

In the case of Tide, the detergent company made Vine videos that reacted to the TV commercials of other brands. Jaguar’s creative team, Spark 44, saw Tide’s strategy and shot a Vine in response.

The Vine showed laundered shirts and black gloves, and a hint of a Tide bottle: “A proper British villain is always prepared. No matter how messy it gets.”

The on-the-fly Vine ended with a card that read: #goodtobebad.

On this Super Bowl Sunday, for Jaguar's social media team, it was good to be bad—and better to be quick.

When Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres snapped that epic selfie with the Samsung Galaxy Note during last night's ceremony, it effectively snagged "Best Picture"—among marketers, that is.

According to Kontera, which analyzed millions of digital views, Samsung was mentioned 40,000 times across Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets during ABC's three-and-a-half-hour broadcast. Even though DeGeneres did not actually mention the brand in her tweet (which was swiftly retweeted 1.3 million times), the San Francisco tech firm found that Samsung scored a peak rate of 900 online mentions per minute because of the stunt.

The tweet broke a record for retweets previously set by President Obama on the night of his reelection in 2012. Twitter's server briefly went down because of the DeGeneres-generated social media mayhem.

The product placement fit nicely with Samsung's "You Need to See This" spot that aired during the show, Kontera said. 

While Google, Netflix, McDonald's and Oreo also fared well during the broadcast, Pepsi's spot for its mini cans produced the greatest single spike in Twitter activity of the night. Pepsi peaked at 1,200 tweets per minute at one point after the ad ran. 

Kontera shared the following exclusive data with Adweek.

Automotive brands have long circled the field of Google marketing like robins on a worm hunt, trying to snatch up consumers and drive them to lead-generation landing pages. And such cars-focused direct marketers have slowly been shifting from desktop to mobile in terms of not only search promos but also location-based banner ads. 

While it's hard to pin down which brand is winning the lead gen war, Toyota appears victorious in the battle for Sprint subscribers. A study from the telecom's Pinsight Media+ division today reflects well on a handful of automakers, while others like Lexus and Dodge have some work to do with this mobile audience.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint pulled data from activity on its network for the month of January, looking at millions of unique mobile viewers. Check out the infographic below, which also features the top third-party sites for its on-the-go consumer set. 

What you say out loud may soon be marketing data, and here’s why: Voice recognition-enabled ads are fast becoming a tool of mobile advertisers who want to ramp up response rates that often fall well short of 1 percent. The futuristic promos quietly emerged late last year, as JetBlue and Toys “R” Us began employing them.

This week, National Public Radio will start running the ads on its smartphone app, which garners roughly a million monthly listeners. NPR has tested the audio spots during recent weeks and believes the ads—which will be heard at the end of news items—have captured the imaginations of its tech-savvy audience.

“People have had to wait for their phones to wake up and then tap on their screens to learn more from our sponsors,” said Bryan Moffett, vp of digital strategy and ad operations at National Public Media, an NPR subsidiary. “With these ads, you simply speak. When our test group heard [the call to action] ‘say download now’ or ‘say learn more,’ we universally heard them respond with ‘huh,’ sounding pleasantly surprised.”

Using technology from XappMedia, Moffett plans to charge a CPM rate “north of $20,” he said, for 15-second spots, which include the ability for the consumer to extend the ad with audio or video. Hardwood floors company Lumber Liquidators is a signed advertiser, though NPR has elected not to disclose other names.

“We have been demoing this for agencies and brands,” Moffett proclaimed, “and the reaction has been roundly positive.”

Lexus and Chevy owners who have NPR on their in-vehicle apps dashboard will also begin hearing ads that ask them to talk back. “Cars are an area that we have high hopes for,” Moffett said.

JetBlue’s marketing team thinks NPR’s sunny outlook is warranted. The airline’s voice-recognition mobile campaigns have “resulted in 50 percent more time spent with the brand than the average rich media experience,” said Rachel Allen, media director at Mullen, JetBlue’s ad agency.

James McQuivey, Forrester analyst, offered: “Mobile listeners’ eyes are not on the screens, and their hands are not on the device. So to create interactivity, you need a mechanism that’s consistent in how they are using the device— and the voice is the right mechanism. But the challenge is that it’s an utterly new behavior to ask listeners to react to. There will be all kinds of uncertainty about what will be on the other side of that interaction.”

Though tight-lipped about stats, NPR’s Moffett said he has tested multiple segments of his app’s listeners while creating copywriting guidelines for brands.

“I can tell you that our [non-voice-enabled] interstitial ads get clickthrough rates between 3 and 4 percent, and we won’t degrade that performance level or our listeners’ experience,” he said.

Which leaves the $64,000 question: Will they talk back?

Nothing says "Lexus" like a guy made of light leaping across the sky.

In "Strobe," an eye-catching minute-long film from CHI & Partners, it seems as if a single shimmering figure is traversing the nightscape of downtown Kuala Lumpur. In fact, dozens of stuntmen and acrobats dressed in LED suits took part in creating the illusion. Using complex rigging and in-camera effects (no CGI), the "illuminated man" appears to vault from rooftop to rooftop, dance across billboards, cartwheel through an empty office and even dive into a high-rise swimming pool.

The film was directed by Adam Berg of Stink Productions, who shot the action over seven nights in April. A pair of behind-the-scenes videos shed (more) light on what it took to make the complicated effort shine.



"Strobe," which will run in the U.S., U.K., Asia and Middle East, is the third impressive entry in CHI's "Amazing in Motion" series, dedicated to "opening Lexus up to a new audience—illustrating not just the brilliant engineering and grace of its products, but also the adventurous, imaginative nature of the brand," says CHI creative director Monty Verdi.

Previous installments "Steps" and "Swarm" dealt with giant metal puppets and copter-bots, respectively. The latter won a bronze Film Lion two weeks ago at Cannes.

All three films are high-wattage affairs that reward repeat viewings. Lexus vehicles only make cameos, which some might criticize as a brand disconnect. I think it's a bright idea that allows the cars to bask in the content's glow without eclipsing the artistry on display.

Below, we asked Verdi a little more about the campaign.

Adweek: Talk a bit about the the process of making the "Strobe" film.
Monty Verdi: There were five full rehearsal days before the shoot, in a giant warehouse in Kuala Lumpur. In the rehearsal studio, we recreated each scene in the ad, making sure each Lightman was at the right height and position to create the illusion of movement.

The shoot itself consisted of seven back-to-back nighttime shoots. We flew in a team of riggers from Thailand who specialized in big stunts and martial arts films that use rigging to suspend performers from wires. They erected vast scaffolding rigs and from those we hung the stuntmen from wires.

Any amusing anecdotes from the shoot?
When we wrapped it turned out a few of the stuntmen could breakdance, so we were treated to a celebration dance in their lightsuits. Also, on the top of the helipad location we were unable to get the scaffolding poles to build the suspension rig, so each piece had to be individually carried up an incredible 32 floors.

What were the biggest challenges or surprises during filming?
One of the biggest challenges was the 40-degree (Celsius, or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit) heat and humidity on the shoot days, with performers wearing lightsuits made of seven layers that were heating up as light travelled through them. It was incredibly physically demanding for the performers, who were held up for long periods—some suspended upside down or with individual limbs held in precise positions by wires. We needed to have giant fans and air-conditioning units constantly keeping them cool as the light sequence created the motion.

Every night, we battled to get the shots we needed before the sun came up. Some setups would take up to seven hours to get everyone into position—but luckily we came away with all the shots we needed.

Creating a lightsuit that would work underwater was another big technical challenge. All the electronics had to be sealed off.

This film is about aspects of Lexus, but it doesn't indulge in car-ad clichés like cars racing through dramatic vistas…
This is a campaign that expresses what Lexus stands for as a brand, rather than trying to sell a specific car. It's about the ambition of the brand, which is using technology and engineering together with imagination to create amazing motion.

What's next for the "Amazing in Motion" series?
These projects are so challenging that the research and development and production timings are crucial—so we're already in the process of looking at ideas for the next three projects. In terms of where they'll take us—that remains to be seen. One thing we can say is that, as they go on, they will continue to get more challenging. But that's what makes them so exciting.

CREDITS
Client: Lexus
General Manager: Atsushi Takada

Agency: CHI & Partners
Social media agency: The Social Practice
Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Burley
Creative Director: Monty Verdi
Copywriter:  Colin Smith, Angus Vine
Art director: Angus Vine, Colin Smith
TV Producer: Nicola Ridley
TV Production Assistant: Adam Henderson/ Will Parnall
Content Producer: Emma Hodson 
Digital + Content Creatives: Simon Findlater, Ben Stump
CEO: Nick Howarth
Planner: Rebecca Munds
Business Director: Jack Shute
Account Director: Catherine Peacock
Account Manager: Hannah White

Production Company: Stink 
Director: Adam Berg
Producer: Ben Croker
DOP: Mattias Montero
Local Production Company: Passion Pictures Malaysia
Local Production Company Producer: Sheen S. Singh/Jaan Kit
Rigging Team: Baan Rig
Editor: Paul Hardcastle, Trim
Post-production: VFX Supervisor Franck Lambertz, MPC
Colourist: Mark Gethin/Jean-Clement Soret, MPC
Post-production producer: Paul Branch, MPC
Audio post-production: Sam Ashwell/ Sam Robson 750MPH
Music Composition: Danielle Johnson (Sesac)
Suit Designers and Technician: Vin Burnham and Adam Wright
Music Company: Platinum Rye
Music Supervisors: Arnold Hattingh & Paul Brown
Writer: Danielle Johnson (Sesac)
Publishing: Computer Magic Music (Sesac)
Master recording: Computer Magic

Content Production Company: Stink
Content Director: Morrish
Content Producer: Helen Power
Content DOP: Ryan Carmody
Content Editor:  Ben Canny
Colourist – Kai Van Beers, MPC
Post production producer – Hannah Ruddleston, MPC
VFX supervisor – Marcus Moffatt, MPC
Audio Post-Production: 750MPH

Pandora wants to guarantee that marketers will have a die-hard audience at its branded concerts—and it's leveraging its user data to back that promise.

The streaming music radio service is partnering with Lexus for a free, four-date southern California concert series, each of which will feature a single act, including Nico & Vinz, Magic! and Kongos. Each show also will showcase the Lexus F Sport, the luxury automaker's millennial-targeted vehicle. The first concert, with Magic! in Camarillo, Calif., will take place today.

While the location for the events was up to Lexus, Pandora helped select the artists based on the brand's target market and information from its listener base, including age, gender and music preferences. Then, it sent out emails and call outs to fans of the acts in the area, hyping them up for the show. 

"The payoff is we can connect the artist with their fans," said Pandora chief marketing officer Simon Fleming-Wood. "We connect listeners and surprise and delight them with a free live show, which is a gift from Pandora and the advertiser."

Many companies are tapping into their proprietary information to help customize campaigns, using consumer behaviors to target online advertising. Pandora believes it can use such information to create real-life experiential events. That said, Fleming-Wood cautioned that brands should be wary about how accurate those statistics are.

Pandora's extensive data comes from having 76.4 million active users who average 20 hours of listening a month, according to Fleming-Wood. So, if a marketer wants to target a specific group—say Hispanic millennials—Pandora conceivably can identify the best artist to reach them.

"Data and the targeting it enables is transforming the media-buying process, but there are watchouts along the way," Fleming-Wood said. "Not all data is created equal."

Publicis Groupe today acquired Ambito5, a leading social media agency in Italy.

The shop, which has 45 employees and works on brands such as Barilla, Swatch and L'Oréal, will be integrated into another Publicis Groupe unit: Saatchi & Saatchi Italy. Why? Because Ambito5 has already worked closely with Saatchi on ads for the likes of Toyota, Lexus, Procter & Gamble and Ferrarelle.

Ambito5 general manager Giuseppe Mayer will maintain his current role, while founder Max Brondolo will become president of the board of directors. Saatchi Italy CEO Giuseppe Caiazza, meanwhile, will join the board as well.

"We are confident that this addition will further strengthen our creative and digital leadership in Italy," Caiazza said, in a statement.

Brondolo, for his part, said that Ambito5 had been "looking for a way to bring a global dimension" to its services for awhile.

Publicis Groupe has been on acquisition spree of late. Also this month, the holding company bought Berlin-based business-to-business marketing agency Zweimaleins to create a new German b-to-b agency know as Saatchi & Saatchi Pro. Other deals involved design agency Turner Duckworth, design consultancy Nurun and digital shop Arcade, in which Publicis Groupe took a minority stake.

Male chief marketing officers on Forbes' third annual Appinions CMO Influence Study,which was released today, are 22 percent more influential than their female peers. Although women make up 32 percent of the influencers on the list, they only have a 21 percent share of the influence.

According to Forbes' study this means that "their opinions received either a lower quantity of reactions, were reacted to by less influential people, or their opinions and the reactions to them appeared in less impactful publications." 

From July to October Forbes analyzed data on the top 500 companies from the Forbes Global 2000 Largest Companies List and over 100 million articles. The CMOs were ranked by how they have established themselves by sharing opinions that and generate significant reactions.

Check out who made the list below: 

1. Phil Schiller, Apple
2. David Lauren, Ralph Lauren
3. Tim Mahoney, General Motors
4. Jim Farley, Ford
5. John Frascotti, Hasbro
6. Kristin Lemkau, JPMorgan Chase
7. Trevor Edwards, Nike
8. Beth Comstock, General Electric
9. Seth Farbman, Gap
10. Alain Visser, Volvo
11. Matt Jauchius, Nationwide Mutual
12. Richelle Parham, eBay
13. Martine Reardon, Macy's
14. Kevin Krone, Southwest
15. Olivier Francois, Fiat Chrysler
16. Stephanie Linnartz, Marriott
17. Andrew Nocella, American Airlines
18. Barb Rechterman, GoDaddy
19. Blair Christie, Cisco
20. Anne Finucane, Bank of America
21. Russell Wager, Mazda
22. Jim Berra, Carnival
23. Jeremy Burton, EMC
24. Alan Gershenhorn, UPS
25. Tony Pace, Doctor's Associates (Subway)
26. Keith Weed, Unilever
27. Dorothy Dowling, Best Western
28. Ola Kallenius, Mercedes-Benz
29. Dana Anderson, Mondelez
30. Ariel Kelman, Amazon
31. Michael Zuna, Aflac
32. Jeannine Haas, Avis Budget Group
33. Karen Quintos, Dell
34. Ken Chaplin, Trans Union
35. Khaled Elkhouly, Etisalat
36. Lorraine Twohill, Google
37. Mark Hug, Prudential Financial
38. Roel de Vries, Nissan
39. Mike Wege, Hershey Company
40. Brian Smith, Lexus
41. David Christopher, AT&T
42. Loren Angelo, Audi
43. Deanie Elsner, Kraft
44. Roy Benin, Mars
45. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay
46. Andrea Riley, Ally Financial
47. Ann Glover, Voya Financial
48. Jeffrey Hirsch, Time Warner Cable
49. Andy England, MillerCoors
50. Johan Buse, SingTel
 

Lexus's "December to Remember" ads, with the luxury vehicles done up in those famous giant red bows, have become as much a part of the holiday firmament as Santa Claus himself. And this year, Team One aims to capture the full spirit of the season by suggesting a new Lexus is the only thing that can give grown-ups that magical feeling of being a kid on Christmas morning.

Three spots feature parents telling their children fantastical stories of how they received a Lexus for Christmas. And no, one spouse didn't just surprise the other by festooning it in an oversize ribbon and parking it in the driveway.

"Christmas Train," which evokes The Polar Express, shows a Lexus IS F Sport sedan being delivered via rail from the North Pole. "Magic Box" shows how large objects, like a Lexus ES sedan, can come in extremely small packages. And "Teleporter" tells of a special ice-covered elf machine that transports a Lexus RX luxury crossover from a winter wonderland into a family driveway.

All three spots end with the voiceover: "The magic of the season is here, at the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event."



"I still remember getting bikes, Evel Knievel toys, Six Million Dollar Man dolls and so many more toys. What else, besides an awesome new car, could come close to that feeling now?" Jason Stinsmuehlen, group creative director at Team One, tells Adweek. "We're illustrating that with Lexus, you're never too old for toys."

Team One presented a dozen campaigns to the client, but this one stood out.

"We simply asked the question, 'If we were going to say Santa brought our new Lexus, and our kids wondered how that was possible, how would we say Santa was able to pull that off?' " Stinsmuehlen says. "Clearly the typical 'Santa's sleigh' narrative wouldn't explain how a new car could show up, so we embraced the innate creativity that exists in all parents. The overlapping storytelling voiceover that transitions to on-camera dialogue was the executional insight that made it work."

Motion Theory director Grady Hall and postproduction company Mirada wanted the spots to have the feel of timeless holiday magic.



"Our goal was to live up to the production values of any theatrical holiday film. It had to be epic, magical and yet totally realistic," Stinsmuehlen says. "We decided to shoot as much as we could in camera, including a giant train pulled on a flatbed truck down a Vancouver neighborhood street and building a huge LED arch for our teleporter to project believable light in our sets."

After changing creative direction on this ad franchise regularly over the years, Team One thinks this one might have more staying power.

"Visualizing a parent's imagination is about as free an exploration as you can ask for," says Stinsmuehlen. "My hope is that if this campaign gets traction, it'll be something we'll keep trying to top for years to come."

And don't expect the big red bows, which have been around since 1999, to be thrown out anytime soon.

"The bow is a Lexus holiday icon that people know without even seeing a Lexus logo. We'd never walk away from something that powerful," Stinsmuehlen says. "It is, admittedly, one of those ad images that some have lampooned. But like the [Coca-Cola] polar bears and [Budweiser] Clydesdales, we hope it's an icon that's as welcome as any marketing during the holidays can be."



CREDITS
Client: Lexus
Title: 2014 December Sales Event TV, Holiday Stories: "RX Teleporter," "IS Christmas Train," and "ES Magic Box"

Agency: Team One
Chief Creative Officer: Chris Graves
Group Creative Director: Jason Stinsmuehlen
Copywriter: Daniel Streadbeck
Art Director: McKay Hathaway
Copywriter: Dave Carlson
Art Director: Bernie O'Dowd
Art Director: Amy Servidea
Copywriter: Aroon Muhkey
Art Director: Bryan Carroll
Art Director: Patrick Dougherty
Executive Producer: Sam Walsh
Producer: Amy Gershwin
Associate Producer: Tiffany Otoya
Account Director: Joel Dons
Account Supervisor: Trina Sethi
Director of Strategic Planning: Noel Sullivan
Senior Strategic Planner: Ashleigh Edwards
Senior Project Manager: Amanda Rackley
Senior Business Affairs Manager: Janet Anderson
Director of Product Information: Robert Jordan
Media Planner: Jarod Knight

Post Production Company: Mirada
President: John Fragomeni
Executive Producer/General Manager: Patrick Nugent
VFX Supervisor: Zach Tucker
Creative Director: Jonathan Wu
CG Supervisor: Michael Shelton
Senior Producer: Diana De Vries
Production Coordinator: Jami Schakel
Editor: Hal Honigsberg

Production Company: Motion Theory
Director: Grady Hall
Founder/Executive Producer: Javier Jimenez
Head of Production: Ben Leiser
Producer: Oualid Mouaness
Director of Photography: Trent Opoloch

Vancouver Production Company: Capitol Media
Executive Producer: Christian Allen
Head of Production: Keely Stothers
Line Producer: Abigail Flint

Editorial Company: Nomad Editorial
Executive Producer: Susye Melega
Editor: Tom Muldoon
Assistant Editor: Steve Miller
Post-Producer: Tommy Murov

Telecine: The Mill
Colorist: Adam Scott

Music Company: Robot Repair
Executive Producer: Doug Darnell
Composers: Aaron Alden, Josh Hawkins, Mike Schanzlin
Sound Designer: Doug Darnell

Voiceover: Maurice LaMarche

Recording Studio: Juice Studios
Sound Mixer – Bob Gremore

While some automakers are pulling back on Super Bowl ads this year, Lexus and agency Walton Isaacson have committed to making their second sppearance in the Big Game. 

This year's commercial for the Toyota-owned brand puts a noticeable emphasis on Lexus' cars while specifically highlighting the NX model. Its ad will run during the first half of the game and employs sounds that a vehicle makes such as a revved-up engine and a door closing.

Brian Bolain, corporate marketing manager at Lexus, told Variety that the automaker is returning to the Super Bowl because it "gives us a chance to talk to people who may not otherwise talk to the auto industry."

Pulling Back Spend
The Japanese company last ran a Super Bowl spot in 2012, when it promoted the 2013 Lexus GS by showing it breaking out of a box. The automaker's return to the Big Game is interesting since a number of automakers—including General Motors, Lincoln and Volkswagen—are sitting out of the huge TV event. Though Toyota, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz are among names planning to run ads this year.

Earlier this week, General Motors global CMO Tim Mahoney told a group attending Detroit's North American International Auto Show that his brand, which is known as a regular Super Bowl advertiser, will not advertise this year. His remarks confirmed speculation that the automaker would stay on the sideline.

According to Justin Hyde, managing editor of Yahoo Autos, one of the key reasons automotive brands are sitting out the game in 2015 is because they don't have new products to show off. Compared to other sectors, automakers tend to focus on specific car models versus general branding.

"If an automaker has an especially important new model coming in the next several months, getting into the Super Bowl makes a lot of sense," Hyde said. "The ones mentioned for the most part have a pause in their new model rollouts."

For example, Volkswagen's much-loved "The Force" spot in 2011 aligned with the launch of the Passat, as the marketer needed to shake up how consumers perceived the car.

Hyde also pointed out that although car brands historically pour a lot of money into marketing, the Super Bowl is a bit of a gamble when ads are pitted against each other on the world's biggest marketing stage.

"For every Volkswagen ad that they've produced in the past two years," he said, "there have been a lot of ads that have fallen off the radar pretty quickly."

For an updated roster of which advertisers are in and out for this year's Super Bowl, be sure to check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker.

The automotive crowd at the Super Bowl will be thinner than usual this year, but BMW will be back.

Lead creative agency Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners is producing a 60-second ad that will air in the first quarter, BMW said today. The spot will feature an electric car known as the BMW i3, which you can plug into a typical 220-volt outlet and charge in three hours.

"Big ideas like the BMW i3 take a little getting used to, and the creative idea surrounding our spot will play on this analogy," said Trudy Hardy, vp of marketing at BMW of North America.

Automakers sitting out the game include General Motors, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Honda. Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and now BMW, however, will battle it out for the best luxury car ad. Other auto brands that bought time include Nissan, Toyota and Kia.

BMW last appeared during the Big Game four years ago. UM is BMW's media agency.

For an up-to-the-minute roster of advertisers participating in the Big Game, check out Adweek's Super Bowl Ad Tracker.

Lexus, which last night advertised its RC 350 during Super Bowl XLIX's third quarter, saw searches on Kelley Blue Book's website skyrocket by 1,820 percent for that model. While we gave the car brand a thumbs-down review, the 30-second spot proved effective at creating a big spurt of lead generation at KBB.com, where consumers can request dealer quotes.

It turned out to be a good night for luxury models. BMW (1,131 percent hike) and Mercedes-Benz (950 percent) were on Lexus' heels, seeing big gains for Blue Book search queries.

When it came to general brand searches—such as Jeep or Chevrolet, as opposed to specific models—Kia drew the biggest jump at 68 percent. Curiously, Lexus' brand overall didn't fare well in this statistical category, coming in with a 6 percent lift. The Japanese automotive company also advertised the NX, which got a 48 percent spike in searches.

With Lexus' model-specific triumphs in mind, what gives?

"Its ads were both very model-centric, which were right in tune with the Super Bowl audience," said Jack Nerad, an executive markets analyst at Kelley Blue Book.

Nerad noted that the brand's spots struck a chord with male consumers, who queried model-specific searches. "Lexus' ads were pretty masculine," he said. "[But] they didn't extend to the Lexus brand."

Check out automotive advertisers' results from last night, per Kelley Blue Book's search data.

Percent Increase of KBB.com Searches for Big Game Advertised Models

Percent Increase of KBB.com Searches for Big Game Advertised Brands

On Oscar weekend, actress Rosario Dawson will open a pop-up store in Los Angeles to promote Studio One Eighty Nine, a clothing line tied to her foundation promoting African culture and content.

Leading up to Sunday's big awards show, Dawson will release five short videos on her social media accounts that will feature her tooling around Los Angeles as she prepares for the store's grand opening—driving not just any car but a Lexus, which sponsors the video series. 

"Quite often, you see sponsorships from big companies at an event­—but not on these other fronts, where you're showing what you're doing [as a celebrity] and collaborating with [a brand]," said Dawson, star of the forthcoming Netflix series Daredevil, adding that she has shied away from more garden-variety endorsements.

In the campaign, Lexus is partnering with WhoSay, the social media service that lets celebrities manage their own social content. Through the service, Dawson's videos will be released on her Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Vine feeds, as well as the Chinese social site Tencent.

Lexus media manager Teri Hill said the campaign is meant to go beyond the standard media placement by letting Dawson showcase a project she is passionate about.

Since it was founded by Creative Artists Agency five years ago, WhoSay has amassed 4.8 million unique users, per Quantcast. WhoSay spent three years recruiting celebrity members and building out the product before launching its advertising model in 2014.

"At one point, we thought this would be a more traditional digital publishing business selling display ads," said Rob Gregory, WhoSay's chief revenue officer. "[But] we've caught a wave that is driven by things that are happening in culture."

KFC, JCPenney, Dunkin' Donuts and Crest have also done campaigns via WhoSay.

In December, JCPenney partnered with John Stamos for its #JustGotJingled campaign. Incognito in a beard and baseball cap, the actor surprised JCPenney shoppers in Los Angeles by offering to pay for their holiday gift purchases. The prank—which, according to Gregory, was Stamos' idea—was seen more than 2 million times on YouTube.

Partnering with WhoSay, Crest promoted its new mouthwash via a campaign on Facebook and Twitter. The Procter & Gamble brand tapped Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev, Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch and actress Alexa PenaVega to share photos of their morning routines running across three weeks. All told, more than 3,000 pictures were posted by the celebrities and their fans.

Branded content is hardly new, of course. BuzzFeed was one of the first large publishers to go all in on native advertising, its success leading The New York Times, The Huffington Post and Condé Nast magazines, among others, to follow suit. But now, the business model has trickled down to smaller players like WhoSay.

"The prices of display ads are plummeting, display's efficiency is also slipping, and native advertising has really become a must-have," said Altimeter analyst Rebecca Lieb.

Brands that want to advertise on Pandora can now target users based on specific demographics, further emphasizing the streaming radio service's move toward programmatic advertising. 

"When you are buying programmatically on Pandora, whether on Web or on mobile, you are getting declared age, gender and residence location," Pandora vp of product Jack Krawczyk said. "Brands can now layer that with what Pandora has done with multicultural communities. It's really allowing advertising communities to enable their buys at higher integrity."

Previously, brands that wanted to advertise through programmatic offerings on Pandora could only buy based on their specific audience demographics. For example, early Web programmatic partner Kellogg's could advertise to Pandora users who visited their sites. Now, brands can upload their own creative and select a certain demographic to target.

Google, which has been using the streaming radio's programmatic platform for Web and mobile offerings, spoke highly of the opportunity to reach new audiences.

"Pandora's unique content proposition, demographic make-up and reach enable Google brands to achieve our branding goals via programmatic," Google North America digital strategy and media lead Bob Arnold said. "We've been extremely pleased with Pandora's partnership and campaign results."

Advertisers can use listener insights to create branded opportunities, and Pandora is allowing brands to leverage its data to reach consumers. 

For example, Lexus created a free, four-date Southern California music series with Pandora in which all the acts were picked based on user age and musical preferences in the area. The campaign, which was created to promote the Lexus F Sport, drove 94 percent brand awareness for Lexus, according to Nielsen research. In addition, 29 percent of consumers said that Lexus was the No. 1 auto brand they could name off the top of their heads. Twenty-three percent of attendees were more likely to search for information about Lexus compared to a control group.

"Our partnership with Pandora allows us to target a younger, affluent audience with the Lexus brand and product like the IS and CT," Lexus western area gm Kevin Fletcher said. "We connect fans with their favorite artists and give them an experience they won't forget."

Pandora's increased programmatic offerings reflects a trend among streaming music services beginning to ramp up their ad products and showcase the wealth of targeted data they can provide brands. On April 8, iHeartRadio announced  it would allow brands to buy ads programmatically across its more than 850 broadcast stations. Spotify also announced recently that it would allow brands to target specific consumers through custom playlists based on user activity and preferences.

Joining the surprisingly long list of organizations getting our hopes up about hoverboards is Lexus, which unveiled a prototype that the automaker has been hinting about since June.

The video for the Lexus Slide features skateboarder Ross McGouran—who normally skates for Vans, Element, Perus and SkatePharmacy—doing his best Marty McFly impression in a custom-built hoverpark full of magnetized ramps and bowls.

I have to say, this is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. I get that there's an entire cottage industry on the Internet based around Back to the Future nostalgia, and I know it's wearing thin, but this is one instance where it's warranted.

The Slide was built as a collaboration with U.K.-based agency CHI & Partners and a team of magnetic levitation scientists from IFW Dresden and evico GmbH. It uses liquid nitrogen-cooled semiconductors and magnets to hover over specially constructed surfaces.

It's similar to the prototype released by Hendo last year and uses much of the same technology (watch the behind-the-scenes video below to learn more).

Unfortunately, while the board is real, Lexus' demonstration is still just a marketing stunt, and we're unlikely to see a commercial hoverboard anytime soon. Campaign U.K. goes so far as to say, "Lexus has no intention of producing the hoverboard as a commercial product or developing the technology any further."

Lexus has said that this is a significant step forward, though, and hopefully Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox will live long enough to see it happen for real, because unveiling a consumer hoverboard without those two wouldn't be nearly as fun.

Lexus has partnered with the USA drama Suits for all five of its seasons. And with the summer finale airing tonight at 9 p.m. ET, the network is sharing a bit of good news about that partnership: It has resulted in a 22 percent increase in Lexus' brand favorability, according to USA's internal research.

This season, USA and Lexus have let the fans drive the content by beefing up the social aspects of the campaign, even incorporating Suits star Patrick Adams' side career in photography. "We were always creating content to give to these fans," Colleen Mohan, svp of brand marketing for USA Network, told Adweek. "In season five, it's really the fans who are creating the content."

A branded custom vignette asked fans to submit their own photos on Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #SuitsInspiration. Some of the photos appeared during episodes in a first-of-its-kind social TV ad. "Lexus really wanted to be part of Instagram," said Mohan.

Lexus also sponsored a new recap series hosted by Johnathan Fernandez that ran on USANetwork.com and Video on Demand. The weekly series' name, #SuitsCritic, came directly from the fans, who began using it as a hashtag in earlier seasons. "That was organic, where they were just commenting on the show," said Mohan. "It was full of their opinions."

For the last three seasons, USA has produced an interactive Web series, Suits Recruits, based on the show's characters, but Mohan explained that Adams' passion for photography provided them the perfect opportunity to give fans a more personal look into the people behind the show. "[Suits Recruits] were very character based and character focused," she said. "Fans just want more behind the scenes; they want more access to the actor."

The shift to social was inevitable, said Mohan. "We follow the fans. We do a lot of listening to find out what they're saying and what they're doing. Lexus is doing the same thing."

USA is not planning anything special for tonight's summer finale, but Mohan expects viewers to light up the Twittersphere once the credits roll. "There's going to be a lot of chatter," she said.