How do you build hype around a multi-million dollar race car when you don’t want anyone to know what you’re up to?
When Acura and Team Penske put their heads together and decided to re-enter the high-stakes world of Le Mans Prototype racing, they wanted to keep it under tight wraps until their surprise unveiling at The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering. But they wanted to make sure race fans were tuned in when it happened.
To accommodate, we created a multi-platform, total takeover reveal strategy that kept audiences guessing for 24 hours before feeding them directly into the reveal itself. Beginning exactly 24 hours before the physical sheet-pull, all of Acura’s social channels were “hijacked” by a series of cryptic videos.
PART I :: 24 HOURS OF CRYPTIC TEASE
In an homage to the vehicle’s first-scheduled race, the 24 Hours Of Daytona, we posted a scrambled, mysterious 3-5 second video on Acura’s stories every hour, on the hour. Countdown timers, static and archival race footage cut abruptly against obscured details of the prototype vehicle and sparked many debates on and off Acura’s channels. During the 23rd hour, the static cleared just enough to reveal the vehicle before cutting directly to the real-life reveal.
PART II :: THE TILE SNEAK PEEK
As a second layer of reveal, we utilized Instagram’s visual grid to reveal a full glimpse of the vehicle moments before the sheet pull for those paying attention. We created a second set of 6 square videos, each with a cleverly hidden single-frame tile that was used as a cover tile to the video. These videos released one-per-hour leading up to the physical reveal. Once all 6 videos were revealed, those who went to Acura’s IG homepage were pleasantly surprised by a puzzled-together sneak peak of the complete vehicle built by the hidden tiles in each video.
PART III :: THE TRADITIONAL REVEAL
As with all good things, this tease had to eventually come to an end. As the sheet was pulled in Monterey, all channels turned to real-time coverage of the event itself. After letting the secret reveals breathe for several hours, all posts were archived and a traditional reveal video was posted to allow audiences a clear and concise picture of both the vehicle and the newly-minted partnership between two greats that were certainly going to cause waves in the racing world.