Lucid's Marketing Strategy for a $169,000 Auto: Immersive Virtual Reality

Lucid is in the process of setting up similar home bases in Europe and the Middle East is also in the plans quotWe want places in affluent areas that get a lot of foot trafficquot said Derek Jenkins Lucid39s vice president of design in an exclusive interviewThe plan makes sense because this is not an inexpensive car The launch model is known as the Dream Edition and it39s designed to blow off Tesla with 1080 horsepower a zero to 60 time of 25 seconds the quarter mile in 99 seconds and 508 miles of range Buyers will get all that in an attractive package designed groundup to be an EV resulting in fairly small size but epic storage and rear legroom But they39ll pay for the privilege 169000 The forthcoming base car will be comparatively affordable at 77400 before the 7500 federal tax creditMediaVillage talked to Jenkins about rollout marketing plans for the Air quotWe39re striving to make our studios an immersive experiencequot Jenkins said quotPeople want to get really involved in the carquot Tesla initially took its cues from the Apple Stores with a lowkey strategy designed to acquaint consumers with the brand Actually buying the car would mostly happen online a trend that has been accelerated by COVID19 even for mainstream brandsThis strategy was somewhat born of necessity because Tesla was intent on owning its stores not using the franchise model that has made generations of car dealers rich Those dealers have heavily pushed back against Tesla resulting in sales bans in some statesLucid is also controlling the sales channels and Jenkins says visitors will have a quotlowpressure experiencequot another Apple innovation There will be cars on display and also some of their key parts including the battery pack and the compact motorinvertertransmissiondifferential There are also displays of materialpaint selections and what Jenkins describes as quota lot of immersive content on video screensquotAnd then there39s virtual reality Customers will be able to get into a model of the Air interior don 4K VR goggles see the car in many different iterations and be quottransportedquot to a variety of destinationsamp8212including the beach in Monterey From home a similar immersion is available through Lucid Studio Live a cloudbased experience powered by ZeroLight39s Concierge productquotWe39re after a new type of luxuryquot Jenkins said quotvery hightech with an awesome digital experience and an underlying sustainability message It39s not about abundance and opulence and showing off We refer to it as 39postluxury39 The modern affluent consumer is conscious of how excessive and overly privileged they might appear to be They want a car that is more experiential with cuttingedge digital technology and a green footprintquotThe company sees its customer base as having quot100000 to no limitquot annual income quotA lot of our customers are already EV buyersquot Jenkins said quotThey already have the affinity and want something that39s not on the road today But the bigger opportunity is folks who have not yet bought EVs and we39re seeing a lot of interest from them After all 98 percent of the market is still buying internalcombustion carsquotLucid declined to say how many advance orders it has for the Air Working with the Marshall Strategy branding agency and the Tolleson creative agency Lucid came up with a statement that dovetails with the aggressive customization that39s possible with the Air quotThose not bound by convention are free to define their own experiencequotquotAdvertising is in the worksquot said a Lucid spokesman quotWe are just looking at the best time to deploy We would do so on the major networksquot That39s a departure from Tesla which doesn39t advertise much at all But Tesla gets huge amounts of free publicity and Lucid is a new brand The promotional materials the company has produced are relatively sophisticated Here39s a video about the car39s 99second quarter milePhoto at top The new Lucid studio in Beverly Hills Lucid photoClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Lucid's Marketing Strategy for a $169,000 Auto: Immersive Virtual Reality

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Jim Motavalli

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Lucid's Marketing Strategy for a $169,000 Auto: Immersive Virtual Reality

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