| Title | SLIDE, AMAZING IN MOTION |
| Brand | LEXUS INTERNATIONAL |
| Product/Service | HOVERBOARD |
| Category |
A02. Creative Innovation (incl. business solutions in association with a brand or creative campaign) |
|
Entrant Company
|
CHI & PARTNERS London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Advertising Agency
|
CHI & PARTNERS London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Production Company
|
SMUGGLER London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Production Company 2
|
MARSHALL STREET EDITORS London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Credits
| Jonathan Burley |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Executive Creative Director |
| Monty Verdi |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Creative Director |
| Brad Woolf/Dan Bailey |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Creatives |
| Chad Warner/Ben da Costa |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Digital/Content Creative(s) |
| Zoe Barlow |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Agency Executive Producer |
| Nikki Cramphorn/Nicola Ridley/Matt Cresswell |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Agency Producer(s) |
| Karina Aloupi |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Content Producer |
| Nick Howarth |
CHI & PARTNERS |
CEO |
| Jack Shute |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Business Director |
| Catherine Peacock |
CHI & PARTNERS |
Account Director |
| Nita Rushi |
CHI & PARTNERS |
PR Director |
| Atsushi Takada/David Nordstrom/Yolande Waldock |
Lexus International |
Global Brand Team |
| Henry-Alex Rubin |
Smuggler |
Director |
| Fergus Brown/Chris Barrett |
Smuggler |
Executive Producer(s) |
| Ray Leakey |
Smuggler |
Production Company Producer |
| Dr Oliver De Haas |
IFW Dresden/Evico GmbH |
CEO |
| Dr Lars Kuhn |
IFW Dresden/Evico GmbH |
Chief Engineer |
| Robert Jones/Glenn Haddock |
|
Model Maker |
| Joel Collins |
Smuggler |
Production Designer |
The Brief
Ever since it was immortalized in the Back to the Future film, the Hoverboard has been a universal symbol for future innovation, yet felt impossible to execute within current technological boundaries.
Starting from just a basic table-top physics demonstration of cryogenically cooled, levitating superconductors, The Lexus Hoverboard needed to be conceived from the ground upwards. Over the course of more than a year, the agency team worked alongside Lexus and magnetic levitation research specialists from The Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden to develop the core technology, build that into a working prototype, and then ultimately produce the final working Hoverboard.
From the beginning of the project and throughout its execution, the Hoverboard team needed to break new ground to hone the capabilities and potential of the technology. The team of scientists at IFW were initially skeptical that a Hoverboard could ever combine the size limitations, levitation height, aerial performance and weight bearing that were all required to deliver the amazing spectacle that was finally achieved.
And the Hoverboard itself was just one piece of the puzzle. A custom skatepark was then conceived, designed and fabricated, providing a unique home for the Hoverboard and its rider. The hoverpark needed an instantly recognisible aesthetic from the world of skateboarding, yet at the same time invisibly house thousands of high-powered magnets to allow the Hoverboard to float across it.
The Lexus Hoverboard was never developed to be a commercial proposition for resale. Instead it was designed to embody the creativity, imagination and innovation at the heart of the Lexus brand, and to harness the phenomenon of superconducting levitation, in a way that had never been seen before.
It works by placing a set of superconductors into the base of the Hoverboard and then cooling them with liquid nitrogen beyond -197 degrees. The Hoverboard runs over a track of permanent magnets, whose flux lines are ‘pinned’ into the superconducting material, maintaining the gap between board and ground, or put more simply, making the Hoverboard, hover. This gap was maintained for around 30mins, after which the board needed to be refilled with liquid nitrogen to re-cool the superconducting material.
In under 24 hours, the campaign drove more than 100million+ impressions, generated over 11million+ views and #LexusHover was trending on Twitter and Facebook. Mainstream media from BBC, CNN, USA Today, ABC World News published editorial on the campaign, and CNBC live-broadcast an interview with a marketing expert on their channel, heralding the tease film a “marketing slam-dunk by Lexus”.
On 5th August when the full campaign broke, international coverage exploded online – Reuters, Huffington Post, BBC, Wired, Bloomberg, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, E!Online, TMZ, Fox News and many more, were all writing and tweeting about the campaign. Fast Company even released a filmed interview piece with two of their tech editors questioning if you are a Lexus competitor what do you do next?
In total, the Lexus Hoverboard campaign has generated over US$56milllion in equivalent media value, driven more than 33+million views worldwide and over 1.7billion impressions. 97.5% of the local markets worldwide have activated the campaign online via PR and owned social media channels. 40% of web traffic driven to the Lexus site was Hoverboard related activity. The Lexus Hoverboard is currently the brand’s most successful online campaign to-date.
Levitating replicas of the board are now being showcased in ten countries around the world, showing the ongoing interest and fascination that our audience has for the Hoverboard.