Lexus 'Safety' Campaign Uses Interactive Billboards

As part of its “RX Actively Safe” campaign, Lexus has executed interactive outdoor installations in three markets. The ads, courtesy of Monster Media, are part of a larger campaign created by Team One.

The campaign’s tagline, “The safest accidents are the ones that never happen,” promotes Lexus’ focus on safety. “It goes back to the idea that Actively Safe is all about preventing an accident,” said Kimberly Gardiner, creative manager at Lexus National and Collateral Advertising.

Commercials on TV show a car crash, and then reverse the action until a serene street emerges, or a child’s hospital room reverts back to his bedroom and his injuries disappear. The outdoor placements, appearing in empty storefronts in three cities, provide a more close-up interaction with consumers. When a person walks by a location, an ad for the RX 350 luxury SUV rolls into motion. It matches the speed of pedestrians on the street until it crashes and virtually shatters the glass in the window. It then says “Safe helps you survive an accident.” The car backs up and the fractured glass is replaced by the word “Safe,” which in turn gives way to the text, “Actively Safe helps you avoid one,” appears.

The out-of-home ads are running for one month in storefronts in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The executions are implemented by Monster Media’s MonsterVision technology, which wraps the windows with a film to allow projection of images and uses motion sensors to trigger interactive elements.

“In most cases we come up with the creative, or it is a collaboration between us and the agency or client,” said Bill O’Neil, SVP at Monster Media. “In this case Team One came up with the idea behind the ad.”

Monster Media wrote the code and Flash-based animation behind the execution, and worked to deploy the unit. O’Neil said Monster Media was involved from an early stage and was able to work collaboratively with the other agencies involved. The campaign was conceived by Team One in Los Angeles, and media was handled by Zenith Media’s Chicago office. Monster Media also worked with InWindow in New York to locate and rent storefront locations for the ads to run.

“Team One had explored some out-of-home options, looking for new technology to bring some of the non-traditional messages to the consumer,” said Gardiner. “Team One and Monster connected when on the search for unusual and innovative vendors out there trying new things.”