• by Karl Greenberg , March 13, 2008

Lexus has for years now held annual test drives that were more à la carte than car ... now it's bagging the swag.

Starting this year, Lexus will replace its "Taste of Lexus" lifestyle events with a series of more defined events built around performance, luxury, and all-wheel-drive vehicles. "We felt it was becoming more about the destination than the cars," says Brian Bolain, national interactive and automotive events manager for the Torrance, Calif.-based company.

"People were coming because we were giving three to four hours of entertainment value." As a result, he says, the percentage of lead generation that Lexus was getting from the program wasn't as strong as it had been. "We were getting lots of owners," he says.

Instead of one tour in the summer, surrounding Lexus vehicles with epicurean and prestige brands, Lexus will now do three separate tours during the course of the year, each focusing squarely on the cars. The tours will also use an "intercept" approach: instead of Lexus creating its own event and doing mass mailings to generate its own traffic, the company will do "pop ups" that bring its vehicles to venues owned by complementary brands.

Lexus has experimented with the approach. The company last year promoted its Prius vehicles by putting them at Whole Foods Market stores, an effort to capture the nexus of environmental consciousness and upscale, educated consumers. And Toyota's Scion brand launched with a sub rosa campaign, in which the division showed up at hip music and clothing stores and restaurants with vehicles.

Bolain says the first tour, featuring the new performance-tuned IS-F and GS 460 sedans, will comprise four racetrack components. The test-drive will visit eight markets.

Bolain says the performance-vehicle tour will focus on such venues as high-end fitness centers. "There's a big difference in hand-raiser rates when you are surprising people in an environment in which they are comfortable," he says.

"Essentially, we will spend less reaching the same number of people but more than double the number of markets we get to in the course of the year," says Bolain, who says that at some "Taste of Lexus" events, owners made up 75% of the crowd.

He says the company is also beefing up its owner rewards program with new travel and epicurean offerings.