Acura’s real-life recreation of a store and Integra S Type from “Chiaki’s Journey” web series. Image: Acura.

Acura’s bestselling high-performance Integra Type S enactment is an adjacent bigger deed online than successful dealers’ showrooms. It’s a prima of Accura’s wildly fashionable animated web series, “Chiaki’s Journey,” present successful its 2nd season.

As of June, the archetypal play (four episodes that ran successful 2022) has been viewed astir 280 cardinal times. It has acold exceeded expectations successful connecting with younger premium car buyers, lifting information metrics and boosting sales. That play was besides awarded a Gold Effie and named a Grand Effie Contender astatine the U.S. Effie Awards.

The run was created successful concern with originative bureau MullenLowe and London’s The Line animation studio.

Extending the bid to a 2nd season

This spring, the 2nd play of “Chiaki’s Journey” launched successful bid to physique connected the momentum and adhd to the saga established successful Season One. Produced successful a slick anime style, with an archetypal stone taxable song, the amusement follows a young pistillate seeking to fulfill her father’s bequest arsenic a legendary car racer. With each episode, the assemblage learns much astir Chiaki’s peculiar skills and astir the prominence of her father, who passed distant earlier the communicative began.

Anime and car fans tin spot the caller episodes connected YouTube. The bid is besides promoted connected integer car and manner properties, societal media, streaming and outdoor successful cardinal U.S. markets.

“Chiaki’s Journey” play 2 cast. Image: Acura.

Assembling a customized web bid to pull a caller audience

The Acura selling squad each shared a idiosyncratic involvement successful Japanese-style anime films. They besides saw that anime was experiencing a resurgence, particularly among younger consumers. Creating an anime bid astir Acura seemed to beryllium a mode to bring successful caller customers, though nary 1 expected “Chiaki’s Journey” to go arsenic large arsenic it did.

“We went into this truly not knowing what to expect, but we were immense anime fans and we went into it with a strategy,” said Meliza Humphrey, elder manager of Acura Marketing. “We didn’t cognize what the effect was going to be, but our strategy was that anime was coming backmost into popular civilization — it was a large thing. We knew successful the past we’d done campaigns resonating good with car civilization and the Acura culture.”

The bid includes fast-paced contention sequences arsenic good arsenic scenes wherever the characters enactment connected cars successful the store to hole for aboriginal races. As a result, casual anime fans and car enthusiasts alike find thing to latch onto, with plentifulness of opportunities for Acura to weave the Type S into the narrative.

“We’re a Japanese marque and we’re a show brand,” said Humphrey. “We wanted to see the Type S models and bring an authentic communicative to our fans. So we started from there.”

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Finding and engaging the close customers with content

“Chiaki’s Journey” is tailored for societal buzz. That’s the effect of Acura’s selling team’s galore ideas for making episodes meaningful to the car maker’s assemblage and car enthusiasts much broadly.

“If you intermission successful [the bid quality Uncle] Noboru’s garage, each the historical parts astir racing, garages, and the Acura contented — a car enthusiast would cognize each the small nuggets and Easter eggs we enactment successful there,” said Humphrey. “So it’s a existent collaboration betwixt us, MullenLowe and The Line to marque each these things travel to life.”

“Chiaki’s Journey” store country from Season Two. Image: Acura.

She added, “We cognize who we’re trying to pull to the marque and erstwhile we make a campaign, who that’s going to resonate with. We besides person our media partners who find the close integer partners and bash the targeting for america to scope that audience.”

Additionally, Acura uses a societal listening instrumentality and has a societal analytics spouse engaging the close customers connected social.

Email and the buyer’s integer journey

“We privation to look astatine views but besides radical who are sharing, arsenic an hold of engagement,” said Humphrey. “The eventual extremity is to thrust radical to our website truthful that they tin larn more.”

On the website, customers tin physique their ain Integra virtually and link with section dealers to marque a acquisition oregon reserve a caller exemplary if it isn’t yet available.

“We person pridefulness successful however we negociate our lawsuit database and however cleanable we support the data,” Humphrey explained. “Within the database, we were capable to place customers and nonstop them an email run talking astir however Type S was coming, and teased successful the anime series.”

Live events and out-of-home

To physique buzz astir Integra Type S cars and the 2nd play of “Chiaki’s Journey,” Acura installed a real-life recreation of Uncle Noboru’s garage, featured successful the series, astatine the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach lawsuit successful the spring.

Outdoor ads successful prime markets besides were utilized to awesome to fans that different play was underway. Acura made a large splash successful Times Square with a Season 2 advertisement successful 3D.

“Out-of-home was different large hold for the campaign,” said Humphrey. “Our out-of-home was truly placed strategically successful LA, New York’s Times Square and besides successful Miami during the F1 season.”

In this way, motorsports and Acura fans tin spot an engaging bid statesman to instrumentality a caller beingness successful the carnal satellite astir them. No plans person been made conscionable yet for wherever the bid goes next.

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