Porsche Campaign Distinguishes Boxster, Cayman Models

Porsche Cars North America has a pair of print and interactive campaigns to promote the Atlanta company's Boxster and Cayman sports cars. The campaign comprises print ads, online banners, and microsites. The effort is via Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt, which wrested the account from Minneapolis-based Carmichael Lynch last September.

The campaign is intended to differentiate the two cars by ascribing to them distinct personalities. The effort for Cayman, which has a shadow theme, promotes the car as mischievous by touting its aggressiveness in power and handling, and its style. Creative--with the tag "Engineered Mischief"--has the car driving along, casting a shadow shaped like a pitchfork.

Copy reads: "Born with a silver pitchfork in its mouth." The other says: "Uh-oh. Those voices in your head have engineers working for them."

By contrast, the Boxster campaign touts the car for its quintessence among roadsters, with the message that there are two kinds of premium rag-tops, Boxster and the others. It contrasts the Boxster experience of reality with the generic sports car.

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One ad shows the car, but also two shades of blue in paint-chip-type squares. A dull, light blue is labeled "roadster sky"; the more electric blue is "Boxster sky." Another print ad does likewise with "Roadster Sun" and "Boxster Sun." The tagline: "The Boxster. Everything Better."

In April and May, print ads for Cayman are running in Men's Health, Wired, Fast Company and Details and for Boxster in Men's Vogue, Wine Spectator, Fortune and Golf Digest.

The microsites porscheusa.com/shadow and porsche.com/all/better also take the same approaches. The Cayman site has a witchcraft/sorcery theme, with the car at the center of a Ouija-board-type concentric circle of rotating rings. The car's pitchfork shadow serves as a pointer. When one clicks on one of the terms etched into the ring--"History" or "Driving Videos"--it slides around, launching the feature onscreen. The Boxster site also has a circle of options, but the circle is made by a ring of paint cards.

Marshall Ross, CCO of Cramer-Krasselt, says the campaign is the first bona fide effort by the agency for the automaker. He adds that the purpose was to spotlight the personality differences between the two stablemates.

"One's obviously a coupe and one's a roadster. So, one of the goals was to make those real distinctions become really apparent," he says, adding that the other goal was to make a real distinction between the cars and their competitive set.

Neal Oddes, J.D. Power & Associates director of product research and analysis at the firm's syndicated studies division, says that set includes BMW's Z4, Honda's S2000, maybe Nissan's 350Z, definitely Mercedes' two-seat sports cars, the SLK and CLK, and Lexus' SC.

He says the car's looks are not minor elements. "They are hitting all the right notes," he says. "In our studies for initial quality and in the APEAL (Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) studies they do phenomenally well."

Oddes adds that among the 10 areas of "involvement" in J.D. Power's survey-based analyses of what consumers care most about when shopping coupes and roadsters, exterior styling, engine and transmission are high points. "Porsche does exceptionally well in both cases," he says. "They lead in both."

"The Cayman is sexy; it looks a little evil; it looks like it has trouble on its mind," says Ross. "The Boxster is about the superlative roadster experience, and that is all about the elements; the color-chip idea came from the need to find a fresh way to portray the roadster experience."

He says that although there is likely to be television advertising in Porsche's future, in 2009, the focus will remain on interactive and print. "Online is a big part of Porsche going forward, and if we can bring that personality online in a compelling way, you will see a lot more of it."

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