Audi is quite literally capturing the excitement generated by its new electric vehicle.
In a new campaign, the auto brand monitors physiological responses from supermodel and longtime Audi aficionado Coco Rocha as she observes the new Q8 e-tron model. A litany of her physiological responses to vehicle’s design, performance and features were measured by Hexoskin sensors and EEG readings, which were then used to make AI-generated art that ended up resembling brightly-coloured explosions, waves and bursts of coloured sand.
The art will now be showcased at a Royal Ontario Museum, where Rocha will be in attendance and interviewed by fashion journalist Jeanne Beker.
When you drive a vehicle you love, it creates an emotional reaction, and the insight ended up being that the reaction should be something that is measured and visualized, explains Joseph Bonnici CCO for Tadiem, parent of Bensimon Byrne, the agency tasked to fire up the Audi brand’s Canadian ambitions.
“Once we had her experiences [recorded] and got all that data, we created a system in AI to turn that data into art, a really long process,” Bonnici says.
According to Bonnici, there’s still some apprehension around EVs with respect to range before needing to charge, but that has been dissipating as the category matures. Now, brands need other ways to stand out and compete beyond just technical specs.
Audi has been very active through its House of Progress tour, a global Audio EV experiential event that touched down in Montreal last fall, promising a more immersive way to engage with its luxury vehicles.
Bonnici says the ROM is a bit like the Q8 e-tron launch version of House of Progress, as it delivers on the immersive and hands-on element, while adding a “prestige” element one of Canada’s most prominent museums brings with it, and something Audi always wants to emphasize in its brand.
Rocha also fits that positioning, as well as its emphasis on progress. The model has worked with names like Karl Lagerfeld, but was also a pioneer in the fashion industry as an early adopter of social media, as well as an advocate on behalf of younger models, campaigning for age restrictions to protect them from being exploited in the profession.
The media mix is full integrated, though Audi is leaning heavily into cinema, capitalizing on the anticipated success of films like Barbie and Oppenheimer.
“For us, it’s a key media play to translate the concept for people,” Bonnici says. Digital OOH will also be used as a way to impactfully show off the art.
Touché is responsible for the media buy.
