We started the campaign by posting a “Playing film” onto YouTube, a cyber forum attracting information from “friends,” to impress them with iQ’s amazing compactness and performance. The film sparked a debate, “Is it real or a fake?” amongst young people highly sensitive to new information. It coincided with a “Playing OOH” iQ-human-interactive “street” performance on building walls and a “Playing PR” appearance of iQ carrying guests to a film festival site. These gimmicks disseminated widely through word-of-mouth communication were followed by the Playing film broadcast on TV, allowing iQ to quickly draw great attention.

The campaign successfully built a “fun” relationship between iQ and young people that was completely different from their past experiences with conventional cars.

In the midst of depressed passenger car sales across Japan, iQ recorded 8,000 units in sales, about 320% larger than the goal of 2,500 units, for the first month of launch. The debut of iQ made a great impact on the Japanese market and the car received the coveted 2008 Car of the Year and Good Design Awards. The “Playing film” achieved more than 1,200,000 PVs in total on the Net.