How to Set an Automotive Trend
Propagation Planning isn’t a new technique for us. We first used it (umm, that doesn’t mean we were the first to use it) to launch Vodafone 360 in Europe, putting the service in the hands of folks like Lily Allen, who shared her life through it for a few months. We partnered with Lexus to modify the method for a campaign called Darkcasting, implementing propagaiton in a way that turned out to be completely different than VF360, except for the fact that influential people were still at the core. This video from Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, does a pretty good job explaining the benefits of the Influencer model (aka Propagation Planning if you’re a strategist).
And there appears to be a trend happening right now in the automotive industry that the Wall Street Journal picked up on. Automakers, with Lexus at the forefront in this story, are harnessing the power influential people offer, to get their messages into the ether. You can see Lexus’ work right now, and according to the Journal, propagation campaigns will be launching from other automakers sometime in the future. In the meantime, here’s a bit of what WSJ had to say about what Lexus is doing:
Armed with images and video from their test drives, the stars of the Lexus campaign have been spreading the word by blogging, tweeting and posting images on Flickr. R&B singer Goapele tweeted: “I had a great time last night with @Djqbert @WhitneyCummings. Thanx to @keyinfluencer @VanHoven @lexus for a solid production. Go #Lexus1″
These social-media personalities will “propagate the message,” says Jonas Hallberg, co-founder of the New York ad firm that helped craft the Lexus push.
You can read the rest of the article here. But tell us what you think of it, and if you’ve been using this model, where can we see it and how is it going?
