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590 000 Capetonians decide the content of their radio advertising

Braving Cape Town's peak hour morning traffic with the Lexus GS450h, Draftfcb Johannesburg in collaboration with HeartFM, recently invited listeners to create their own radio advertising in the form of the Lexus LiveDrive.
590 000 Capetonians decide the content of their radio advertising

SMS'ing their comments, questions and directions to the LiveDrive line, listeners were able determine the content, focus and outcome of their radio ads. On this particular morning the main points of listener interest seemed to involve the performance of the V6 engine, technology in the form of the Mark Levinson sound system, the Park Assist Monitor and keyless entry, and most importantly, fuel economy as it was just announced that the petrol price would once again increase.

Using the content created by the listeners the in-car copywriter created the next advertisement, making it the first time radio as a medium was user content generated. There were four live crossings to voiceover artist Ashley Dowds sharing his LiveDrive experience with listeners in real-time. The ad still maintained the format of a 60 second radio ad, with a 10 second pre-recorded sign off prompting listeners to book their own Lexus drive experience.

Commenting on this initiative, Draftfcb Executive Creative Director, Marthinus Duckitt said: “Advertisers currently face the challenge of breaking through the clutter without creating more clutter by introducing so-called new alternative advertising spaces. Our challenge was to creatively revolutionise an existing media channel, namely radio. The result being 590 000 Capetonians in the driver's seat of the GS450h at one time. And judging by their comments, they loved it!

According to the Draftfcb Johannesburg creative team, such a revolutionary car — the Lexus GS450h being one of only two Lexus PERFORMANCEHYBRIDS currently available in South Africa — demanded a revolutionary media solution. This led to the idea of a hour long live test-driving where consumers determined the content of the ads in real-time. A world-first.

“During the one-hour test drive, we received far more SMSs than we anticipated, enabling our copywriter to really deliver messages that resonated with the audience. This was an exciting and successful world-first for Lexus, Draftfcb Johannesburg and HeartFM. Lexus plans to rollout more live drive radio experiences nationally,” said Duckitt.

10 Mar 2009 11:05

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