SUVs are known for utility. Plain and simple. Once a novelty, they have become the most crowded vehicle segment in the market. And among Millennials, SUVs are “their parents’ car.” But with the NX Turbo, Lexus created a new kind of SUV – one that goes beyond utility with breakthrough styling and performance. Our objective: pique the interest of hard-to-reach young affluents and convince them: It doesn’t matter what an SUV is moving, if it doesn’t move you.

The Lexus NX campaign was a resounding success, surpassing previous auto industry benchmarks and past campaigns:

• 11.2MM unique Facebook users and delivered over 10.8MM video views.

• Engagement rate of 26.67%, we’ve beaten the auto industry benchmark of 1.50% by 16x.

• NX campaign is Lexus’ most efficient Facebook campaign to date; achieving a cost per view of $0.04, a 300% increase in efficiency.

• Since the launch of the campaign, the NX has consistently exceeded monthly sales goals, reaching 112% of its objective through March.

• In addition, within three months, the NX has achieved its year-end goal of raising awareness from 0% to 40%.

When we looked at the NX target audience through the lens of Facebook likes and interests data, we found that they over-indexed on nearly every passion point: travel, wine, fashion, music. The data told us that these were cultural trendsetters and taste-makers. And they existed in large numbers. What if we could use data to creatively engage this group based on what each individual cared about the most? And show them the difference between utility and beyond utility.

Together with Facebook, we decided to create the most personalized video campaign in history at scale.

Using Facebook audience insights, we segmented the NX audience by top interests and affinity rankings. And then we went a step further. Because Facebook offers data about real people, we were able to further segment by gender, geographic location, and even vehicle ownership status (are you a current Lexus owner, or are you a BMW owner, for example).

Our creative team then devised a framework to which interchangeable pieces of data-inspired creative could be compiled into custom videos to target different audiences. A woman who likes fashion and drives a BMW would see one video, while a man whose likes technology and drives a Lexus would see another. The end production result was over 1000 unique video ads targeted to more than 2,700 niche segments. The right message to the right person at the right time – at scale.