Marketing plan for the Scion iQ features parking, driving 'n' donuts

Part of Scion's quirky appeal to Gen Y is a knowing sense of not taking itself too seriously. After all, they're just cars, right?

For the marketing launch of the Scion iQ minicar, Scion will have a brief spate of TV commercials that highlight the car's minute size and grand sensibilities. But the heart of the campaign will be online -- featuring parking spots and parking lot shenanigans.

Because the iQ is a new segment entry for Scion, it needs to be introduced to the public on a larger scale than the brand's typical viral methods, said Scion Vice President Jack Hollis.

In the iQ's debut TV commercial, a drape hangs over what appears to be a large sedan. Then the drape rises, revealing two iQs back to back, with the tag line "I am going to be big."

Another spot shows a cluster of engineers becoming uncomfortable as the skinny turning radius of the iQ wedges them ever closer together. The last spot highlights the car's 11 airbags, a key safety feature for the world's smallest four-seat car.

Online, however, silliness ensues.

Four online spots feature actors portraying policemen, bikini models, Jersey shore dudes and motorcycle toughs being whipped around the parking lot of Los Angeles landmark Randy's Donuts. The driver -- a stuntwoman dolled up like a bikini model for all four spots -- torments the car's occupants with high g-force driving as they try to eat donuts and drink milk. Much spillage occurs.

"We didn't tell the actors what they were getting into," said Owen Peacock, Scion national manager of marketing communications. "We just asked them if they got sick on roller coasters. The footage is real, not acting."

Another round of 11 online spots showcases the iQ's parking abilities.

Shot in lo-fi format, the 15-second spots include a point-of-view perspective of a man watching the iQ park as though he were Bill Murray's leering Caddyshack character. Another shows a Barack Obama lookalike and his three-man Secret Service detail exiting the iQ as though it were a clown car -- but with complete aplomb.

Scion needs to get back on buyers' radar. Recent data from Compete Automotive show that Scion has trended downward in terms of shoppers over the past 30 months and that the entire brand now has fewer interested shoppers than the Kia Soul, the ersatz version of the Scion xB box.

But the iQ launch could change all that, said Lincoln Merrihew, managing director of Compete's transportation consultancy: "The iQ, like the Fiat 500, could be a fringe model, or it could become part of the new mainstream."

By Mark Rechtin- Automotive News