Category: Emerging Trends

Lexus Trace Your Road: life-sized racing game

To promote its new high-performance hybrid car, Lexus, together with Saatchi & Saatchi Italy, creates “Trace Your Road”, an experiential event featuring Formula 1 driver Jarno Trulli.

Ten Lexus fans are selected from hundreds of applicants on Lexus’ Facebook page. Each winner rides in the passenger seat of the hybrid while Trulli drives, and the passenger “draws” the course on an iPad. That path is projected onto the floor of an aircraft hangar using special projectors, while a custom high-resolution infrared (IR) camera system tracks the car’s position in real time.

In automotive launches and premium brand marketing, turning a test drive into a participatory game makes performance feel experienced, not explained.

How the experience works

The format is a life-sized driving game with the audience literally designing the track. The event flow is built around three moving parts.

  • Live track creation. The passenger traces a route on the iPad, creating spontaneous turns, straights, and corners.
  • Real-world projection. The route appears at scale on the hangar floor, so the “racetrack” becomes a physical space.
  • Real-time tracking. An IR camera system follows the car so penalties and scoring can be applied accurately.

What makes it competitive, not just cinematic

Trulli’s driving is put to the test as he attempts to follow the improvised paths at speed. Penalty points are given when the car goes outside the projected route or touches the hangar walls. The goal is to hit seven selected touch points in the quickest time, and the fan with the best score wins.

Why it lands: performance becomes legible

Hybrid performance can be hard to dramatize without slipping into numbers. This format gives Lexus a clean way to show control, responsiveness, and handling under pressure, while keeping the story human through the passenger’s real-time choices and Trulli’s visible skill.

What Lexus proves with “Trace Your Road”

The brand is not only saying “this car performs”. It is staging a situation where performance is the only way to succeed. The experience also rewards participation: winners influence the outcome, spectators understand the rules instantly, and the filmed content has a clear narrative arc.

What to steal for your next experience-led launch

  • Let the audience shape the challenge. When participants create the rules in real time, attention spikes because outcomes are unpredictable.
  • Translate product claims into constraints. Handling, control, and precision become visible when the environment punishes mistakes.
  • Build a scoring model people can explain. Simple penalties and a clear finish condition make the story travel.
  • Use tech as infrastructure, not the headline. Projection and tracking matter most when they disappear into the experience.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Lexus “Trace Your Road”?

It is an experiential event where a passenger draws a racetrack on a tablet and the route is projected onto a hangar floor, while Jarno Trulli drives a Lexus hybrid along that path in real time.

How is the racetrack created and shown?

The passenger traces the course on an iPad, and the design is projected at scale onto the floor using multiple projectors so the track becomes a physical space to drive in.

How does the system know if the car stayed on the route?

A custom high-resolution IR camera tracking system monitors the car’s position against the projected route so penalties can be applied when it leaves the path.

What makes this more than a one-off stunt?

The format produces repeatable rounds, clear scoring, and a strong spectator story, which makes it easy to capture as a campaign film and behind-the-scenes content.

What is the main lesson for experience design?

Make the product truth the win condition. When success requires the product’s strengths, the message feels demonstrated rather than claimed.

Coca-Cola Live Tweets #LetsEatTogether

Coca-Cola in Romania seems to have broken new ground in the country with its integration between Twitter and TV, as it included live consumer tweets during its ad.

The insight for the campaign came from the fact that in Romania 60% of people don’t eat meals together, but instead eat them alone while sitting in front of their TV. So Coca-Cola decided to use tweets to create open invitations for people to actually come together and have a meal with a Coke.

As shown in the video below, the TV ad included a subtitle bar that was used to run the tweets that consumers sent using the hashtag #LetsEatTogether. Coca-Cola’s ad agency, MRM Worldwide, then edited the tweets and inserted five to seven of them into each ad placement.

The campaign increased Coke’s Twitter followers in Romania by 15% as hundreds of tweets were aired on TV. The campaign even made it to the evening news as its uniqueness made Romanians wait everyday for the ad.

Why this Twitter plus TV integration worked

The execution is simple. It borrows the visual language of TV subtitles, then uses it for social proof. Viewers see real people inviting others to eat together, in real time, inside the ad break itself. That makes the message feel less like a brand instruction and more like a public invitation.

It also turns participation into a lightweight ritual. Tweet the hashtag. Watch for your message. Share the moment when it appears. The format gives people a reason to keep an eye out for the ad, which is the opposite of what usually happens during commercials.

What to steal if you design campaigns with live participation

  • Use a single, explicit mechanic. One hashtag, one behavior, one clear outcome.
  • Make the audience visible inside the media. The tweets are not a second screen. They are on the primary screen.
  • Curate without killing authenticity. Editing keeps it brand-safe while still feeling consumer-led.
  • Reward repeat viewing. New tweets each placement create a reason to watch again.

A few fast answers before you act

What did Coca-Cola Romania do in this campaign?
They integrated live consumer tweets into a TV ad by running curated hashtag messages in a subtitle bar during the commercial.

What was the insight behind #LetsEatTogether?
That many people in Romania ate alone in front of the TV, so the campaign used tweets as open invitations to share meals together.

How were tweets handled for broadcast?
Tweets using #LetsEatTogether were edited and five to seven were inserted into each ad placement by the agency.

What changed in performance?
Coke’s Twitter followers in Romania increased by 15% and hundreds of tweets were aired on TV.

What is the core lesson for cross-media experiences?
If you bring live participation into the primary screen, you can turn an ad break into an event people actively watch for.

MINI: Salutes You in London

In August I wrote about how Coca-Cola Israel used technology to personalise billboards for people who drove by.

Now, as part of its ongoing Not Normal campaign, MINI decides to give MINI drivers in London a custom message by taking over a run of giant billboards along a fast-paced road for a two-week period.

Reportedly, the campaign reached out to 1,941 MINI drivers in London during the run.

How the billboards “recognise” drivers

The mechanism is deliberately human. Spotters use iPads to identify approaching MINIs and trigger the right creative. Each message is sent with pictures of the make and model of the MINI it relates to, so the driver sees something that feels directed, not generic.

In urban out-of-home advertising, combining live triggers with personalised creative can make a brand message feel like a service moment, not just media.

Why this lands on a road, not in a feed

Most personalised media is private and one-to-one. This flips it into a public setting. The driver gets a direct salute, and everyone else sees a brand that appears to be paying attention to its community in real time. That publicness is the multiplier, because it turns a personal moment into shared talk value.

What the campaign is really doing for MINI

The work reinforces the Not Normal positioning by celebrating owners rather than pushing product claims. It also turns “existing drivers” into the hero audience, which is a neat way to build loyalty and social proof at the same time.

What to steal from this pattern

  • Use a simple trigger and a clear payoff. Recognition plus a tailored line is enough if the timing is perfect.
  • Keep it brand-native. A salute fits a community brand. A hard sell would break the spell.
  • Make personalisation visibly specific. Showing the make and model is the proof cue that prevents it feeling random.
  • Design for safety and readability. Short messages, high contrast, instant comprehension.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “MINI Salutes You” in one line?

A digital out-of-home activation that displays personalised messages to MINI drivers as they pass selected London billboards.

How are the personalised messages triggered?

Human spotters using iPads identify approaching MINIs and trigger the relevant creative, including make and model visuals.

Why use billboards for personalisation?

Because it makes recognition public. The driver feels noticed, and bystanders see a brand visibly celebrating its community.

What is the main transferable lesson?

If you can time a simple personalised moment perfectly, you do not need complex tech to create a campaign people retell.