Acura: #Raceyourheartout [video]

Credits & Description:

Agency: Ignition A Razorfish Company
Brand: Acura
Country: USA
Advertising Agency: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Entrant Company: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Media Agency: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Pr Agency: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Production Company: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Additional Company: Ignition A Razorfish Company, San Francisco
Art Director: Chris Kitahara (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Senior Strategist, Social Media: Faye Ehrich (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Senior Copywriter: Newton Stern (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Senior Account Director: Amy Kelly (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Project Manager: Anna Mulholland (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Associate Director, Social Media: Chris Terschluse (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Group Technology Director: Eric Campdoras (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Vp, Production: Heather Mahoney (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Senior Director, Social Media: Jerry Lawrence (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Hardware Developer: Philip Van Allen (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Designer: Tommii Lim (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Sr. Creative Technology Developer: Chad Drobish (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Associate Creative Director: Kate Foley (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Senior Presentation Layer Architect: Stephan Lough (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Vp, Group Creative Director: Mike Frank (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Strategist, Social Media: Zachary Cheek (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Vp, Social Media: Cristina Lawrence (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Vp, Client Partner: Liz Swanson (Ignition – A Razorfish Company)
Production Company: Rosetta / El Segundo
Campaign Description:
Classic slot car races provided a powerful insight and mechanism: rekindle the love and excitement of getting an iconic toy, and translate that nostalgia into the joy of buying a new car. This led us to create the first ever Periscope-powered race: a slot car race with a multi-camera broadcast and two live announcers, inviting users to #RaceYourHeartOut. The more a viewer would heart, the faster their slot car would go, and the winning car of each race raised $500 for charity.
Synopsis:
Acura asked us to activate their "Oh What Fun It Is To Drive" Winter Sales Event by reinventing a holiday tradition. We were charged with producing a social program that would generate earned impressions through consumer engagement, and drive consumer traffic to the offers page of Acura.com.
Strategy:
To generate widespread consumer awareness for Acura’s “Oh What Fun It Is To Drive” Winter Sales Event, we, targeted a broad audience that would already have some affinity for Acura, including women, but was generally outside of Acura's core social fanbase, which is 75% male.
Outcome:
The purse for each race was worth a $500 donation to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Two hours and twenty races later, we had generated over 60,000 hearts and raised $10,000. In total, users watched 75 hours worth of races and Acura brand media. Acura’s rate of hearts on Periscope increased 190%.
Execution:
Two custom 3D printed Acura TLX slot cars were created and each given their own Periscope account. Users picked the TLX they wanted to race by joining the car's broadcast and simply hearted the screen to make it go faster.Every heart press was monitored real-time on both Periscope accounts. An Arduino then converted the heart into a unit of current and accelerated the corresponding slot car. The entire race was captured live via five cameras along the track and edited into a Periscope broadcast along with running commentary from Acura factory racecar driver, Ryan Eversley and sports broadcaster, Greg Mescall.The Slot Car Holiday Heats ran for two hours on December 10, 2015, totaling 20 head-to-head races.