Lexus’s promotional site mixes up surreal clips with a touch of a keyboard

To promote the new 2014 Lexus IS sport sedan, the brand is rolling out an interactive microsite “The Amazing Mix” that enables users to play with the content and create short custom videos using a keyboard. Visitors to the site (U.S. 18+ residents) who submit their unique compilations of sound and visual effects, have a chance to win prizes from Lexus.

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Pic. A sreenshot from the Lexus «Amazing Mix» platform (click to enlarge), lexus.com/amazingmix/

The interactive Flash-based platform, developed by San Francisco-based design firm Attik, invites users to experience the joy of music creation with a few things required—a keyboard and a pinch of a producer talent. Users just press any keys to active various sound and video effects, building a coherent music mix. The creative studio is a virtual white room with a new white Lexus in the very center, a white statue to the left and several black-and-white suitcases to the left among other monochromatic elements.

Each key activates somewhat surreal visual elements such as walking models, gymnasts, flying red birds, a guitarist popping out of the suitcase, and many more.  There’s already a techno tune in the “background”, so a user just has to add new audio-visual elements to it, not to create a clip from scratch.

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Pic. The process of creation a clip on the Lexus «Amazing Mix» platform (click to enlarge), lexus.com/amazingmix/

Users can share their mixes across social media and participate in a competition to win tickets to the 2014 Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, hotel stay at the event and a $2,000 or a $500 cash prize. The contest is running through August 5. Besides the microsite and the competition, an integrated Lexus IS campaign also includes online banners and a promotional video that starts automatically when a person opens the page.

The idea to entertain fans with custom-built audio or visual mixes was previously implemented by Old Spice and Adidas in a more or less same fashion. While in the Old Spice activations users were just encouraged to play a simple tune using Terry Crew’s muscles, Y-3 by adidas and Yohji Yamamoto offered to create a real music clip—similar to Lexus’s “The Amazing Mix.”