Background

China is the world’s largest automobile market by auto production since 2018. But with a car ownership rate that remains low, at 141 cars per 1,000 inhabitants (compared with around 600 in Western Europe and 800 in the United States), the country is attracting existing and new carmakers within and outside China. As a result, its key auto shows like the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show has become an international stage to showcase the latest car models, concept cars, electric vehicles (EVs) and even autonomous driving vehicles to millions of visitors over the 8-day event. For our client ICONIQ Motors, a relatively unknown EV car brand, they face the challenge of showcasing Muse, ICONIQ’s autonomous electric concept car, as the future of mobility at its Shanghai Auto Show booth with over 1000 local & international car brands fighting for attention.

Describe the creative idea

Our idea for using the VR talent? We want to attract visitors to ICONIQ's Shanghai Auto Show booth by bringing them into the future of the brand's technology vision i.e. Experience Tomorrow's World Of Mobility Today. We needed to go beyond focusing on showing the current range of ICONIQ's cars including its concept Muse. From our social listening and analysis, we found that ICONIQ's fans are intrigued by its unique vision of mobility, autonomous driving and car Internet of things which combined the best of both worlds in its Middle East and Chinese car manufacturing roots. Given that China has one of the largest base of auto and tech enthusiasts, the creation of ICONIQ's future vision of tech and mobility may prove more interesting to them. We just needed go find the right talent with the right skills to let our booth visitors Experience Tomorrow's World Of Mobility Today.

Describe the strategy

Chinese fans of ICONIQ are born in 1990s, knows overseas movie, tech and auto culture. Our strategy was to target them as the first followers for ICONIQ’s car booth activation at the Auto Show. Using social listening, we found Zhang Xiao, a Google Tilt Brush VR artist. He loved ICONIQ’s desire to create the next step of mobility by combining art and science in its electronic cars.  Contrary to the secrecy associated with creating new art or launching a new car, we decided to engage him to do both openly by “leaking” his work about Muse and ICONIQ’s future technology vision on social media. The artist would “paint” Iconiq’s Muse as a vision of mobility & technology via unique immersive VR art using Google Tilt Brush and advocate for the brand online, a first time ever innovation combining social media and VR talent at an auto show booth in China.

Describe the execution

Besides creating the commissioned VR art for ICONIQ's Muse concept electronic car, the VR artist was also its first online influencer advocating his social followers as well as ICONIQ's social fans to share news content of his unique once-in-a-lifetime art. The key goal was to intentionally leak his art and news of ICONIQ's Muse, rather than keep the car secret, to attract fans to bring friends to see his depiction of Muse at ICONIQ's booth at the Shanghai Auto Show. The VR artist will share pieces of content via videos of his thoughts in creating the art 2-3 weeks before the Auto Show. Each content will be re-shared on ICONIQ’s social channels. In this way, auto and tech enthusiasts were enticed to come to the ICONIQ’s Auto Show booth to experience Muse and its VR art in 3D with a chance to take the artwork home.

List the results

Social media results achieved: 1] 24,248,000 total live streaming & video post views on Sina Weibo 2] 16,448,000 total post reads on Weibo & WeChat 3] 8,231,000 total hashtag views & social engagement 4] 16,420 total visitors check-in via WeChat mini app 5] 8,016 (3531.28% increase) total of new WeChat followers, which was an almost 50% conversion of the visitors at ICONIQ's Shanghai Auto Show booth