• by Karl Greenberg , September 9, 2009

Lexus this week launches the 2010 Lexus HS 250h hybrid sedan, its first car that is available only as a hybrid. The marketing campaign, "Hello Someday," comprises five television spots that show off the car's features with a futurist theme that the HS 250h is the leading edge.

The effort, via El Segundo, Calif.-based TeamOne, includes mini Web commercials to air on ABC and NBC's sites and HS 250h product placement in ABC's FlashForward, in which the car is the featured vehicle and is also in ABC's ad print, TV and online ad campaigns for the show.

Television ads are airing on prime time and sporting events on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, as well as late-night and on select cable networks, per the company. One of the ads, a 30-second spot, has shots of the car rolling along the road from country to city as superimposed digital animation demonstrates the car's technical features.

The car's radar pings are visible as circles emanating in concentric rings; infrared becomes visible and the car becomes transparent to show electric circuitry. Voiceover says: "Radar to help watch for the unforeseeable; infrared to help protect; satellites to help guide; electricity to adjust how powerfully or efficiently you drive. Someday we'll all drive like this."

Other spots show such technology as the driver-attention monitor, which gauges the activity of the driver's face to determine whether he or she is losing concentration. A voiceover says things like: "Someday cars will use infrared to monitor the driver's face and alert them when they're not paying attention to the road. Hello Someday."

Print ads are slated to run in a broad range of news and lifestyle magazines like Clear, Dwell, Esquire, Fast Company, National Geographic, and The New York Times.

The print campaign also includes an arrangement with Conde Nast in which Lexus will have three ads customized to different titles. The ads juxtapose the car with fashion sketches, architectural drawings and computer graphics by fashion, architecture and technology luminaries Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Richard Meier, and John Maeda. The text of the ads has them discussing what "Someday" might mean in their fields.

Lexus launched the program with a promotion on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" called "Conan, Please Blow Up My Car" where participants submitted their clunkers for the chance to replace it with the HS Hybrid.