Want 2 Be Square Marketing
05-09-2007, 01:36 PM
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Want 2 Be Square Marketing
This is an article I found over at the The FWA
not really sure if this is the right place to post. It kinda targets all Scion not just xB. feel free to move it if need be.
Talks about the ideas behind marketing to Generation Y and the approach this company took to do so.
ENJOY!
Jake
Welcome to the Scion xB Online Candy Store: want2Bsquare.com
by Simon Needham, Co-Founder and Group Creative Director, ATTIK
Attracting Generation Y
Five years ago, our then 15-years-young company earned the right to serve as the creative agency for Toyota’s new Scion brand of vehicles.
In their desire to attract Generation Y buyers into the Toyota family, our clients had us specifically target those individuals with our Scion campaign.
The challenge was, and remains, that these individuals do not want to be marketed to. A big part of responding to that challenge has been focused on building creative elements that are spot-on in terms of the interests of our audience.
Since launching the Scion campaign initially, we’ve also used a combination of guerilla and alternative marketing approaches to put the creative elements in front of our audience members in ways that are respectful of their interests and preferences.
Multifaceted marketing campaign
Earlier this year, working very closely with our Scion clients, we launched a multifaceted marketing campaign promoting the all-new 2008 Scion xB, which celebrates the vehicle’s most recognizable attribute - its boxy shape.
The focal point of the pre-launch campaign is The Favourite Website Award-winning website www.want2Bsquare.com where the “square” universe is represented inside an engaging, entertaining, multidimensional web experience.
There, visitors are encouraged to explore an expansive world, play games against other visitors, view a wealth of video content celebrating the xB’s “square-ness,” and discover other quirky experiences.
These actions lead to the accumulation of points which can be redeemed for an array of prizes ranging from Scion key chains to DJ turntables.
The Design Approach
Regarding our design approach, I had an initial thought for every world... or between myself, creative director Wayne Hanson and other members of our creative team, we came up with concepts that established an idea for each world.
I wanted to get this blocky simple world for one, a wasteland for two -- drawing from the look feel of horror movies, which are relevant to our audience.... For every world, we had a principal idea, and then our designers went crazy.
We worked with some outside design firms (including The Vacuum), and we also added some new people. All together, these designers contributed a lot to each of the worlds.
Every World tells a story
With “Urban Zoo,” that's a common term, and we turned it on its head a little bit. We turned it into a combination of a zoo and a busy inner city environment.
If you look at it, you can see highways, overpasses, markets like you get in downtown New York, even the porta-potties... those are all types of things you see on a building site in a downtown district.
“The Square” is much more a futuristic retro style, a specific genre of graphics that is very recognizable in the Kid Robot world -- which most of our owners are familiar with. Everything that we're doing relates to "urban-ness."
Features in “The Beat” allow visitors to build and use their own musical playlists. Along with “Screen City,” which launched back in March, I personally consider these last two worlds to offer visitors the most outrageous and exciting experiences.
Ideas coming together
As more ideas came together and we moved everything forward, I would go to our guys and say, “Here's what I want to do -- can you do it?” I can tell you that we conceived and produced the entire website, start-to-finish, in less than four months.
We had to spend loads and loads of overtime, add staff members and work with scores of outside companies to develop pieces of the puzzle, but it all came together quite nicely. With everything we're producing, we try to encapsulate what Scion's about -- and the fact is, Scion's an urban brand.
Establishing credibility
Overall, our main goal is to continue to establish a super-credible brand with Scion.
In doing so, we are striving to offer our target audience cool content to have fun with.
In the principle that they love to discover things, if they play around with the website for more than 10 minutes, they're going to click a car and they're going to see the car come up and it's going to say, check out the new xB.
We want to inspire people to come to the site, to have fun with the site, and then make a choice as to whether or not they want to go and view the xB.
We have no intentions of trying to just show the car; all we're trying to do is give people some fun and some entertainment, and give them the opportunity -- if they're interested -- to go and see the car, while not making it the key issue.
It's not like we're trying to sell the car as much as we're trying to continue to establish credibility and to make our audience aware in a subtle manner that there is a new car about to be launched.
Web components have been part of most of our past campaigns, but this is without doubt the first time we have really centralized all the advertising to a website. This definitely the first time we've focused the website as being the core of the campaign.
It's all about team work
On behalf of my colleagues, I consider want2Bsquare.com - and the entire pre-launch campaign for the 2008 Scion xB – as representing a tremendous effort on the part of every team member at ATTIK.
The innovative marketing strategy, and creation and delivery of such uniquely creative marketing assets are all testaments to the talents of Scion, ATTIK, and everyone involved in bringing this campaign to fruition.
About the Author:
Born in Huddersfield in northern England, Simon Needham studied typography, photography and graphic composition at Batley School of Art, where he met fellow student and artist James Sommerville.
In 1986, leveraging a $1,500 loan from The Prince’s Trust's Business Program, Simon and James joined forces to launch their design studio – which is today a renowned global creative agency with offices in Huddersfield, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
About ATTIK:
ATTIK is a global creative and brand-engineering agency committed to designing extraordinary creative experiences that inspire consumers through compelling communications.
About reproduction:
This article may not be reproduced or used in any part without the prior written consent of the author. Reprints must credit FWA (TheFWA.com) as the original publisher of this article and include a link to this site.
© FWA 2000-2007. All rights reserved.
{embeded link fixed --Tomas}
not really sure if this is the right place to post. It kinda targets all Scion not just xB. feel free to move it if need be.
Talks about the ideas behind marketing to Generation Y and the approach this company took to do so.
ENJOY!
Jake
Welcome to the Scion xB Online Candy Store: want2Bsquare.com
by Simon Needham, Co-Founder and Group Creative Director, ATTIK
Attracting Generation Y
Five years ago, our then 15-years-young company earned the right to serve as the creative agency for Toyota’s new Scion brand of vehicles.
In their desire to attract Generation Y buyers into the Toyota family, our clients had us specifically target those individuals with our Scion campaign.
The challenge was, and remains, that these individuals do not want to be marketed to. A big part of responding to that challenge has been focused on building creative elements that are spot-on in terms of the interests of our audience.
Since launching the Scion campaign initially, we’ve also used a combination of guerilla and alternative marketing approaches to put the creative elements in front of our audience members in ways that are respectful of their interests and preferences.
Multifaceted marketing campaign
Earlier this year, working very closely with our Scion clients, we launched a multifaceted marketing campaign promoting the all-new 2008 Scion xB, which celebrates the vehicle’s most recognizable attribute - its boxy shape.
The focal point of the pre-launch campaign is The Favourite Website Award-winning website www.want2Bsquare.com where the “square” universe is represented inside an engaging, entertaining, multidimensional web experience.
There, visitors are encouraged to explore an expansive world, play games against other visitors, view a wealth of video content celebrating the xB’s “square-ness,” and discover other quirky experiences.
These actions lead to the accumulation of points which can be redeemed for an array of prizes ranging from Scion key chains to DJ turntables.
The Design Approach
Regarding our design approach, I had an initial thought for every world... or between myself, creative director Wayne Hanson and other members of our creative team, we came up with concepts that established an idea for each world.
I wanted to get this blocky simple world for one, a wasteland for two -- drawing from the look feel of horror movies, which are relevant to our audience.... For every world, we had a principal idea, and then our designers went crazy.
We worked with some outside design firms (including The Vacuum), and we also added some new people. All together, these designers contributed a lot to each of the worlds.
Every World tells a story
With “Urban Zoo,” that's a common term, and we turned it on its head a little bit. We turned it into a combination of a zoo and a busy inner city environment.
If you look at it, you can see highways, overpasses, markets like you get in downtown New York, even the porta-potties... those are all types of things you see on a building site in a downtown district.
“The Square” is much more a futuristic retro style, a specific genre of graphics that is very recognizable in the Kid Robot world -- which most of our owners are familiar with. Everything that we're doing relates to "urban-ness."
Features in “The Beat” allow visitors to build and use their own musical playlists. Along with “Screen City,” which launched back in March, I personally consider these last two worlds to offer visitors the most outrageous and exciting experiences.
Ideas coming together
As more ideas came together and we moved everything forward, I would go to our guys and say, “Here's what I want to do -- can you do it?” I can tell you that we conceived and produced the entire website, start-to-finish, in less than four months.
We had to spend loads and loads of overtime, add staff members and work with scores of outside companies to develop pieces of the puzzle, but it all came together quite nicely. With everything we're producing, we try to encapsulate what Scion's about -- and the fact is, Scion's an urban brand.
Establishing credibility
Overall, our main goal is to continue to establish a super-credible brand with Scion.
In doing so, we are striving to offer our target audience cool content to have fun with.
In the principle that they love to discover things, if they play around with the website for more than 10 minutes, they're going to click a car and they're going to see the car come up and it's going to say, check out the new xB.
We want to inspire people to come to the site, to have fun with the site, and then make a choice as to whether or not they want to go and view the xB.
We have no intentions of trying to just show the car; all we're trying to do is give people some fun and some entertainment, and give them the opportunity -- if they're interested -- to go and see the car, while not making it the key issue.
It's not like we're trying to sell the car as much as we're trying to continue to establish credibility and to make our audience aware in a subtle manner that there is a new car about to be launched.
Web components have been part of most of our past campaigns, but this is without doubt the first time we have really centralized all the advertising to a website. This definitely the first time we've focused the website as being the core of the campaign.
It's all about team work
On behalf of my colleagues, I consider want2Bsquare.com - and the entire pre-launch campaign for the 2008 Scion xB – as representing a tremendous effort on the part of every team member at ATTIK.
The innovative marketing strategy, and creation and delivery of such uniquely creative marketing assets are all testaments to the talents of Scion, ATTIK, and everyone involved in bringing this campaign to fruition.
About the Author:
Born in Huddersfield in northern England, Simon Needham studied typography, photography and graphic composition at Batley School of Art, where he met fellow student and artist James Sommerville.
In 1986, leveraging a $1,500 loan from The Prince’s Trust's Business Program, Simon and James joined forces to launch their design studio – which is today a renowned global creative agency with offices in Huddersfield, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
About ATTIK:
ATTIK is a global creative and brand-engineering agency committed to designing extraordinary creative experiences that inspire consumers through compelling communications.
About reproduction:
This article may not be reproduced or used in any part without the prior written consent of the author. Reprints must credit FWA (TheFWA.com) as the original publisher of this article and include a link to this site.
© FWA 2000-2007. All rights reserved.
{embeded link fixed --Tomas}
Last edited by MR_LUV; 11-28-2018 at 06:53 PM. Reason: Awarded 10 Yr Badge
05-09-2007, 02:17 PM
#2
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Rochester MN
Posts: 649
Re: Want 2 Be Square Marketing
Pretty good stuff; thanx for the article.
Some reactions:
"Want 2 Be Square"? The xB2 isn't square! (YOY did they name it "xB" anyway?)
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
Your link didn't work -- I had to copy 'n' paste. (Thanx for fixing that.)
Cool site . . . .
Some reactions:
"Want 2 Be Square"? The xB2 isn't square! (YOY did they name it "xB" anyway?)
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
Your link didn't work -- I had to copy 'n' paste. (Thanx for fixing that.)
Cool site . . . .
05-09-2007, 04:05 PM
#3
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Scion Evolution
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Cucamonga, CA RT66
Posts: 4,402
Re: Want 2 Be Square Marketing
Originally Posted by pooder
Pretty good stuff; thanx for the article.
Some reactions:
"Want 2 Be Square"? The xB2 isn't square! (YOY did they name it "xB" anyway?)
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
Your link didn't work -- I had to copy 'n' paste.
Cool site . . . .
Some reactions:
"Want 2 Be Square"? The xB2 isn't square! (YOY did they name it "xB" anyway?)
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
Your link didn't work -- I had to copy 'n' paste.
Cool site . . . .
05-09-2007, 06:52 PM
#4
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Greenbrier, Tennessee
Posts: 805
I got a bunch of points on the site but it won't let me play games sometimes, and when it does let me play it won't give me points so i can't win anything, I want a MP3 player before the points end and the games won't work.
Last edited by MR_LUV; 11-28-2018 at 06:56 PM. Reason: Awarded 10 Yr Badge
05-09-2007, 06:56 PM
#5
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Originally Posted by MrMcNuggett
I got a bunch of points on the site but it won't let me play games sometimes, and when it does let me play it won't give me points so i can't win anything, i want a mp3 player before the points end and the games won't work.
05-09-2007, 07:00 PM
#6
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Greenbrier, Tennessee
Posts: 805
^^^^I am beginning to think so. The only time i can get it to give me points is at 1:00 AM in the morning when i get off work and half asleep, so i am trying to get some points before i fall asleep 
05-10-2007, 05:31 AM
#7
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Chicago...ish
Posts: 787
Re: Want 2 Be Square Marketing
Awesome article :D Cool to hear from the creators - thanks!
LOL, that's probably the LAST thing these marketing boys want to hear - as a 25-year-old, no offense, I wouldn't be caught dead in anything my dad would consider buying. =p Or worse, my grandparents. I think the marketing execs would have a heart attack if they knew there are those that think of the xB as an "old people's car."
The whole point of the Scion brand, of course, is to lure in twenty-somethings and get us addicted to reliable, fuel-efficient vehicles, since Toyota finally caught wind of the fact that their youngest, hippest drivers were CPA's in their mid- to late-thirties. Personally, I went from a long history of crappy GM trucks to my little $20-fill-up xB, and guess what? I'm NEVER GOING BACK.
So it worked!
It's funny - the only people I see driving xB's are either young and at the cutting edge of trends and fashion (it's not ugly! it's DIFFERENT!), or too old (er...wise) to give a damn. =p
I think Want2BeSquare hit the nail on the head. It's a fun, quirky site, it doesn't feel like an ad, and HOL Y CRAP DID I WIN ME SOME BLING. $$ I got two mp3 playaz and a half-dozen t-shirts! :D YEEHAW! And I don't know if it's just cause they look so cute rolling around in little pixellated form, but I really think I like the new xB now. So this here marketing dude who wrote the article, in my opinion, succeeded on all counts.
It certainly beats the ORIGINAL (current) Scion ad campaign, which made them look like little Fast-and-The-Furious ricer pieces of crap. The only reason I didn't buy one of these things in 2004 is that I didn't realize the "transformer" spot was an ad for a CAR.
My favorite world is "wasteland" - that crusher game is awesome, and you really rack up the points. o/' What's yours?
Originally Posted by pooder
Pretty good stuff; thanx for the article.
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
The xB1 missed the Gen Y target by a bit; it caught quite a few of us Boomers.
The whole point of the Scion brand, of course, is to lure in twenty-somethings and get us addicted to reliable, fuel-efficient vehicles, since Toyota finally caught wind of the fact that their youngest, hippest drivers were CPA's in their mid- to late-thirties. Personally, I went from a long history of crappy GM trucks to my little $20-fill-up xB, and guess what? I'm NEVER GOING BACK.
So it worked!It's funny - the only people I see driving xB's are either young and at the cutting edge of trends and fashion (it's not ugly! it's DIFFERENT!), or too old (er...wise) to give a damn. =p
I think Want2BeSquare hit the nail on the head. It's a fun, quirky site, it doesn't feel like an ad, and HOL Y CRAP DID I WIN ME SOME BLING. $$ I got two mp3 playaz and a half-dozen t-shirts! :D YEEHAW! And I don't know if it's just cause they look so cute rolling around in little pixellated form, but I really think I like the new xB now. So this here marketing dude who wrote the article, in my opinion, succeeded on all counts.
It certainly beats the ORIGINAL (current) Scion ad campaign, which made them look like little Fast-and-The-Furious ricer pieces of crap. The only reason I didn't buy one of these things in 2004 is that I didn't realize the "transformer" spot was an ad for a CAR.
My favorite world is "wasteland" - that crusher game is awesome, and you really rack up the points. o/' What's yours?
Last edited by MR_LUV; 11-28-2018 at 06:59 PM. Reason: Awarded 10 Yr Badge
05-10-2007, 12:40 PM
#9
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Rochester MN
Posts: 649
Originally Posted by Tomas
Before the xB Classic folks start in even more on the xB2 not being square,
Originally Posted by Tomas
I'm gonna move this over into xB2 territory... 
05-10-2007, 07:02 PM
#10
Recent e-mail:
Tom 
Originally Posted by Scion
You're out of time. Almost.
Don't let it run out. You know – time. The clock is ticking and you have a limited amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds to score some great prizes at want2Bsquare. The fateful day and hour is almost upon us – come May 16, 2007 at 11:59 p.m., ET(1) this ultimate of contests is going to be history (although you'll be able to redeem prizes for two weeks after that(2)). Gone will be your chance to win, so visit now to play and twist your brain with some of the most outrageous content online.
(1) The sponsor's computer is the official time-keeping device for this contest.
(2) No worries – redemption will continue after the contest ends until May 30, 2007 at 11:59 p.m., ET.
Don't let it run out. You know – time. The clock is ticking and you have a limited amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds to score some great prizes at want2Bsquare. The fateful day and hour is almost upon us – come May 16, 2007 at 11:59 p.m., ET(1) this ultimate of contests is going to be history (although you'll be able to redeem prizes for two weeks after that(2)). Gone will be your chance to win, so visit now to play and twist your brain with some of the most outrageous content online.
(1) The sponsor's computer is the official time-keeping device for this contest.
(2) No worries – redemption will continue after the contest ends until May 30, 2007 at 11:59 p.m., ET.
11-28-2018, 10:10 AM
#11
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Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 1
The digital marketing is a valuable way to grow your brand but it is also important to note that huge time and effort is needed to bring desired results, that too in less time span. Even I am thinking to use the seo consulting Los Angeles services but not able to find any good team for white hat based work. I can wait for the results but want them to last longer so white hat SEO is the important investment for this purpose. Can you recommend a good team for this work?
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