#electricitytalks
Porsche AG
Issue 52 | September 2019
Agency
Grabarz & Partner
Creative Team
CCO Ralf Heuel Creative Group Head Julica Hauke Creative Team Lead: Frederik Wetzel Art Director: Alessandro Perri Senior Copywriter: Andrew McEvoy
Production Team
Outdoor Installation London: Talon Outdoor Projection London: Projection Artworks Projection Hoover Dam: Worldstage
Other Credits
Media agency: phd Media Media partner: VICE Media Client Director Marketing Communications: Oliver Hoffmann Communication Strategy Managers: Marcel Nusser, Alexander Georgoudakis
Date
July 2019
Background
Porsche was about to launch the all-new, all-electric Taycan. To raise awareness and interest in the three simultaneous events in Germany, China and Canada in September, the car-maker wanted some pre-communications activity.
Idea
Aimed at a target audience defined as ‘Driven Youth’, the focus was on social media.
Mysterious social media accounts were set up to fuel curiosity. For example, the Twitter user ‘Electricity’ tweeted, ‘Hey London, there is something I have to say. Meet me tonight at the London Eye. Love, Electricity. #ElectricityTalks’.
Numerous Londoners as well as influencers in fashion, tech and lifestyle were there that evening to see the London Eye flashing and beeping and to post up videos on their personal channels.
Millions of followers started to rack their brains: what exactly was happening? Suggestions ranged from possible alien landings to a teaser for the new James Bond film.
A day later, a Twitter user identified the flashes as Morse code. He proudly posted the translation: ‘Hey Porsche, get me out on the road. Love, Electricity’.
Electricity now took over the porsche.com website as well as all the sports car manufacturer’s social media channels and repeated the plea to free up electricity from electric toothbrushes and power exciting cars.
A follow-up stunt showed the line, ‘Hey Electricity, all that cold water making you numb? Get ready to feel again. Love, Porsche’ projected onto the huge wall of the Hoover dam.
In response, Porsche promised it would give electricity something meaningful to do. With the new Taycan.
Results
The campaign has reached 130 million people on Social Media, including China, where the video was released on Weibo.
Our Thoughts
This is brave, to create a stunt and then hope that someone somewhere will work out what the heck you were trying to do and share their translation of your coded message. But ideas that get people actively involved like this are invariably more powerful than ideas that just interrupt what they are doing. Yes, it’s a pretty basic advertising idea, electricity is bored and wants something fun to do, but it’s a great case study for how to use social media and influencers successfully.