Lexus put on an event over the weekend to promote their upcoming hybrid, the CT 200h (I think that’s the right combination of letters). It was held at the Distillery District and featured free concerts by a few somewhat known bands.

I didn’t hear about the event until Friday morning on the radio, when they said that The Stills will be performing for free. I never got around to seeing The Stills in concert, so we went down to see them.

There was conflicting information as to whether they started at 7PM or 8PM. So we arrived around 7:30 which ended up being halfway through their set. The played maybe 7 songs after we arrived, none of which I heard of before! Then I realized, that I learned about them and listened to their debut album way back in 2005. That was 5 years ago! And at that time, their album was already 2 years old! I haven’t listened to their newer albums, so it’s no surprise that I didn’t know their songs.

I think the event was lame. The crowd on Friday night was pretty sparse (although maybe Lexus expected a higher conversion rate from the more upscale audience). The Stills had no energy, and seemed to be just phoning it in. Lexus put together a couple of booths with information about their new car. Their hook was that you could win a new iPad, by playing a couple of activities on iPads. The activities were VERY lame. On one, you could superimpose your mugshot on a picture of the car. On another, you could sketch out a path within Toronto you wanted to travel upon, and a third one you could watch videos of the car in action.

Perhaps Lexus wasn’t expecting a technically savant crowd, and expected that the audience would be impressed by the use of an iPad. For me, the apps showed a lack of thought in creating an engaging activity that I would spread the word about. Although, in retrospect I guess they succeed since they get my criticism.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: cars, concerts, freebies, toronto