Spring is when flowers come out and people head out to impulsively buy…fountain pens made of warthog tusk. Luxury automaker Acura is using its spring sales campaign, its largest to date, to
contrast luxury tchochkes with a sensible purchase of an Acura vehicle.
The automaker’s “Driven by Reason Sales Event” campaign centers on TV spots showing a psychoneurotic
montage of oddballs and their luxury purchase behaviors, and OCD around luxury attachments. Each ads them posits Acura as proof a luxury purchase can actually be rational. The campaign comprises 6
TV spots in the kind of heavy rotation normally reserved for vehicle launches.
The effort, via RPA division rp& runs through the fourth of July with the twin messages that Acura is first
and only manufacturer to have a full line of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) five-star crash-safety-rated vehicles; and that it is ranked by ALG as the top luxury brand in
expected resale value.
Some of the ads show a pastiche of stereotypes of luxury consumers and their favorite toys. Speaking directly to the camera, these people try to sound completely
reasonable about their utterly irrational acquisitions. One guy is explaining the wonders of his vacuum-tube amplifier, another the virtues of his watch, made of damask steel, “The same kind
they use in sword making,” with 680 moving parts, “All hand made.” The ads close with a shot of Acura vehicles and the VO, “There are excuses for spending money on
luxury…and then there are reasons.”
Another ad focuses on the lengths to which people go to keep their vehicles clean and thus their vehicles’ resale value high. “I
have a few simple rules,” says one owner in a montage ad. “No feet on the dashboard,” says one guy. “No kids under 7,” says a woman. “Hand-wash only,” says
another. They will air on network sports, cable and spot TV. Spots will be supported with heavy media weight.
Print, radio, point-of-purchase and online advertising tout Acura’s
residual value and carry the safety-performance messaging. High-traffic placements will run on auto Web sites such as Kbb.com, Yahoo! Autos and AOL Autos. Sales event creative will drive users to the
models’ shopping page on Acura.com.