• by Karl Greenberg , October 22, 2010

Land Rover's campaign for company's forthcoming Range Rover Evoque will be developed by a group of people in 10 cities. The company says that as part of the "Pulse of the City" project, 40 influential people in fashion, design, music and film will collaborate with Range Rover over the next 12 months to launch the smallest vehicle Land Rover has yet made.

Land Rover -- which along with Jaguar is owned by India-based Tata -- says there will be a free app that can be used to track the 40 people on maps, which have interactive bullet points about what each of them are doing in that part of town, and their favorite venues in various areas of their home cities. The "living interactive guide" to the urban spaces is also at www.HelloEvoqe.com.

Land Rover's managing director Phil Popham said the urban focus on the campaign reflects the target buyer and the vehicle's intrinsic design. "Its design is inspired by city architecture and a big part of a city is the people within it, their journeys and their conversations."

The "Pulse of the City" app launches first on iPhone with Android versions available from mid-November and uses GPS tracking to record the collective movements of people within the 10 cities, which are Sydney, London, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Milan, Madrid, Paris and Berlin. Some of the people involved are Josh Rubin, founder of Cool Hunting; London TV personality George Lamb; Francesca Versace in Milan; and Berlin actress Jessica Schwarz.

Land Rover's U.S. sales in September were up 12%, which the Mahwah, N.J.-based company says makes for a full year of U.S. sales growth for the brand. Still, the numbers are very small. The volume leader for September was the Range Rover Sport with 897 units sold, followed by the Range Rover with 840 units sold. The redesigned 2010 LR4 accounted for 446 units sales, up from 222 in the month last year. For the year, sales of Land Rover's four models are 22,289 units.

Sibling Jaguar sold 967 vehicles last month, from 880 in the month last year. For the year, sales of Jaguar's three models are 9,748 units.

Tata Motors said last month its worldwide sales were up 19% to 86,996 units. Jaguar and Land Rover comprised 19,528 units throughout September, up 16% versus the month last year.