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}

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 . . . .

Re: Want 2 Be Square Marketing
 

Pooder--don't let them know that boomers like the xB!!!! They think we all drive buicks. Don't let them know I won a couple of mp3 players and assorted baubles on the want2bsquare site! LOL

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.

It'll only work if you're over 30! :rofl: :silly: :clap:

^^^^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 :yawn:

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?

Before the xB Classic folks start in even more on the xB2 not being square, I'm gonna move this over into xB2 territory... :P

Tom http://tijil.org/xB_icon.gif

Well it's NOT! :eyebrow:
ENJOY!

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Tom http://tijil.org/xB_icon.gif