Driving Innovation

"We chose to focus on art rather than commercialization," says Jeff Bell, vice president of the Chrysler brand. "We give BMW credit for breaking outside of the standard advertising medium, but Chrysler is less intrigued with the $100-million-budget projects and more interested in seeing true innovation, inspiration, and creativity come to play with the emerging filmmaker. We're interested in ideas, not special effects."

At last month's Cannes Film Festival, Hypnotic set up a Chrysler Villa at the Hotel Martinez and kicked off the extreme filmmaking phase of the MDFF by challenging each of its 10 semifinalists to write, cast, shoot, edit, and premiere a five-minute short film in just 10 days. A star-studded panel of judges then chose 5 finalists to move on to the Chrysler Summer House in Los Angeles, where they will develop a million-dollar production package alongside an industry mentor on the Universal Studios lot. In exchange for funding the feature-length film, Chrysler will claim partial-equity ownership of the final product.

"Here's a marketing program that's paying you on the other end," Scott says. "All you need is one diamond in the rough to make this program worthwhile."

We're Really Huge in Japan

While Chrysler aligns its Crossfire and PT Cruiser with film lovers, Toyota is placing all of its chips on music. Last year, the maker of the Tercel and Camry lines announced that it would launch an entirely new line of cars for first-time buyers. This entry-level line, called Scion, won't debut in the United States until June 2003, yet the brand is already alive and kicking thanks to Fresh Machine, a two-year-old design shop with absolutely no experience in the automotive industry and just 10 full-time employees.

"Toyota decided it wanted to go outside of the envelope entirely with the Scion launch and to work with an interactive shop rather than an ad agency. That was a huge, critical difference," says Rick Bolton, who was previously the director of broadband and future TV at Razorfish. "They were glad we'd never worked on a car account before because they didn't want the same old thing. They wanted a branding launch that wouldn't fall into expected patterns."

And, by all accounts, that's what they got when Fresh Machine partnered with the Rebel Organization, the marketing arm of a Los Angeles-based music magazine called Urb. Together, they created the Scion brand from the ground up, starting with the actual silver-coated badge that appears on every car and ending with a cutting-edge Web site that screams youth and exuberance.

Aimed specifically at an urban crowd interested in house, dance, electronica, and trance music, Urb helped Toyota narrow its focus on a specific youth demographic that would exploit the customization potential of the bbX and ccX -- the first two Scion models. (The boxy bbX model actually resembles a giant cruising speaker and boasts a custom audio system.) Fresh Machine stepped in with the technical and design expertise to build a high-tech brand for that target customer. And the result can be sampled at the Scion Web site, which houses music downloads, Urb stories, and fresh graphics, all of which combine to communicate the brand message.

"Authenticity was absolutely important," Bolton says of the Scion site. "We didn't want to overhype the cars, so we concentrated on narratives that weren't condescending or canned, and we emphasized the experiential notion of the brand. In the end, a car is really a lifestyle choice. You buy a car, and it becomes a reflection of you for many years. That means successful car brands must have lifestyle credibility."

That is an important departure from traditional thinking, says Danish branding guru Jesper Kunde. "Choose your values and define your soul," says Kunde, author of Unique Now ... Or Never: The Brand Is the Company Driver in the New Value Economy (Prentice Hall, 2002) and Corporate Religion: Building a Strong Company Through Personality and Corporate Soul (Prentice Hall, 2000). "Soul and authenticity are essential. Consumers today have all the power, and they will challenge companies to communicate their vision in new and dynamic ways. If your brand has no soul, it has no personality and no compelling message. Consumers will see through that."

That is part of the reason why Toyota, which has failed to create a stir with its youthful Echo, began building the Scion brand so far in advance of the car's launch dates, Bolton says. "Toyota wants buzz and word of mouth to take hold and help build credibility for the brand. And they have the time to do that."

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