To engage the “Cultural Progressives” audience and introduce the new Lincoln MKZ, the brand created a 20-page interactive digital brochure in the high-end architectural magazine series Edition29. Interactive hotspots aligned with music and positioned the Lincoln-sponsored “Beck Reimagines“ as a concert destination as well as a mobile site where users could find out more information about the vehicle.
Objective and Context:
Lincoln wanted to reintroduce its all-new Lincoln MKZ and its defining character attributes among the core target of “Cultural Progressives” via intensely personal and immersive tablet experiences across select paid digital magazine subscriptions.
Target Audience:
Cultural Progressives are men and women aged 35 to 50 with a household income of more than $150,000. This target is well educated, open-minded, and obsessively curious. They value unique experiences over possessions, and to them, wealth is a means to self-expressions. Passions represent their individuality.
Psychographic:
Creative Strategy:
To engage this audience, Lincoln created a 20-page interactive brochure that was inserted into the high-end digital magazines subscription of the Edition29 magazine series, which covers housing, architecture, and structures.
Lincoln partnered with recording artist Beck to bring a new take on classic music by putting together a collection of sounds from unexpected places. More than a typical concert performance, the “Beck Reimagines” series layers unique sounds together from different musicians. Interactive hotspots were used to position “Beck Reimagines” as a concert destination as well as a mobile site where users could find out more information about the MKZ.
Overall Campaign Execution:
This was the second year that Lincoln worked directly with Edition29. This execution evolved from best practices and key insights learned from the previous year of programming. The creative formula was tweaked to include additional content pages and increased use of video to create a “native” experience, or a “magazine within a magazine” format, to drive additional time spent and interaction with content.
Mobile Execution:
Mobile was used to harness the unique character and environment of the Edition29 series of architectural and design magazines exclusively for iPad devices to build the MKZ brand image as a vehicle that “breaks the traditional mold and dazzles with charismatic magic.” Edition29 created an in-depth MKZ experience through full-page imagery, sound, and video to build the MKZ idea as a “magical vehicle which integrates naturalistic forms with technological achievement and communicates all that’s possible.”
The campaign was focused entirely on tablet devices based on research that showed Cultural Progressives regularly use tablet devices and are more interested in a lean-back experience versus the quick-hit environment normally associated with mobile advertising. The goal was to increase overall time spent with the Lincoln brand.
Lincoln was having a tough time breaking through to and having a meaningful dialogue with the luxury auto segment. By pairing with Edition29, the brand found a unique, high-end, visually stunning paid digital publication that reached the core target while providing multiple touch points for users to engage and spend time with the brand in order to increase purchase consideration.
The campaign was deemed highly successful based on total video interactions and time spent within the ad experience itself (a contained experience with no click-out). Additionally, there was tremendous increase in brand awareness and favorable opinion as measured by the Dynamic Logic brand study that accompanied this campaign. This program was used as a case study across the agency regarding how to market within a paid-sub digital magazine environment that went far beyond the typical static full-page ad unit and link-out to a landing page.
