Lexus was looking for a holistic way to align itself with the dual pillars of emotional intelligence (EQ) and visionary leadership. In particular, it wanted to drive action and consideration among the Lexus LS target consumer through experiences—both virtual and in person—as well as custom content that inspires and fuels connection with a hard to reach and engage audience of affluent consumers and business executives.
Empathy, or the ability to see the world through another perspective, is a familiar concept for most managers. But how can leaders make empathy more actionable—transforming an abstract human emotion into a driving force behind policies that impact and resonate with a wide spectrum of employees?
To answer this challenge, Lexus, in partnership with WSJ Custom Content, collaborated on a Leadership Master Class led by Dylan Marron that focused on harnessing emotional intelligence in a way that can lead to real change.
The series of four videos covered the following areas: Building your Emotional Intelligence, Difficult Conversations, Leading with Empathy, Understanding the Other Side. Unlike our typical videos, which run 2:00 or under, we made these videos longer—which posed a challenge for both our design/UX team and performance teams who had to monitor and optimize throughout the campaign.
The content, which also lived within Lexus’ O&O channels, complimented the client’s event activation at THe Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything festival, which included an Interactive Workshop on empathetic leadership. This unique approach to telling a complicated and engaging story was meant to stand apart from other content on our platforms.
The ‘Emotional Awareness Leadership Sessions’ succeeded in elevating Lexus’s brand awareness among key decision makers and aligning the brand with their key Emotional Intelligence and Visionary Leadership pillars via a unique custom content experience.
The content outperformed benchmarks across various KPIS including VCR which was 1.5 times higher than benchmark, showcasing how deeply engaged the viewers were with the content. The four engaging and informative chapters were complemented by shorter video cutdowns that further amplified the content across social platforms and preroll placements. These creative elements generated CTRs that were almost 4 times the norm and reached a wide and qualified audience, in particular those with management roles and above as well as XXLarge companies ($1B+ in revenue).
The Lexus sponsorship of WSJ’s The Future of Everything Festival 2021 also allowed them to reach a powerful and forward looking audience. There were more than 15k attendees with a strong representation of C-Suite and EVP members who tuned in to watch the “Leading with Empathy” main stage session. The supporting media elevated Lexus’s brand visibility with double digit impressions across the various marketing tactics.
