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Shortly after taking the helm of U.S. marketing for Lexus earlier this year, Vinay Shahani had an honest conversation with his ad agencies and marketing team. 

“Even though I loved the work they were doing, I thought there was an opportunity for us to be a little more focused in our marketing,” he said, especially when it comes to reaching millennials, which by his estimate will soon be the largest buyers of luxury vehicles.

His message: “If I am being honest, I feel like our competitors are doing a better job of connecting with these consumers than we were,” he recalls on the latest edition of Ad Age’s “Marketer’s Brief” podcast.

That led to a new marketing approach that has included establishing a TikTok presence, striking deals with “micro-influencers” including sneakerheads and audiophiles, appealing to gamers and putting out ads that look more like music videos. 

The latest effort is a campaign called “Emotional Sparks” that features songwriting duo Nova Wav, Korean-American R&B artist Audrey Nuna and Argentinian freestyle rapper Ecko. Agencies on the campaign included Publicis Groupe-owned Team One, as well as Walton Isaacson and IW Group.

The musicians collaborated on an original song called “No Ceiling” that plugs technology such as Lexus TeamMate, the brand’s new advanced driver-assistance platform that enables automatic steering, acceleration and braking in highway driving. The brand released the song on streaming platforms and accompanies it with a music video that includes dancer and choreographer Zak Ryan Schlegel. 

It also released 30-second TV spots featuring the artists, including an ad buy on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” But overall, “the prevalence of TV in our media mix has definitely come down,” Shahani said. Instead, Lexus has increased its investment in platforms including Instagram Reels and TIkTok. 

One of its first TikTok campaigns was a video warning about the dangers of distracted driving. It showed people driving a LexusNX that was equipped with electrochromic technology that turned the windshield and windows from transparent to opaque instantaneously for 4.6 seconds—which is the average time it takes to send or receive a text message. The video, taken on a closed driving course, captures the chaos that ensues after the drivers unexpectedly lose view of the road.

“We were amazed at the engagement that we saw on the TikTok platform,” Shahani said. “We developed that campaign specifically for TikTok and it was a pretty powerful pilot, or lesson, for us and it’s given us more confidence to go after more specific TikTok executions.”

The search for younger buyers has also led Lexus to put more money in esports, and less in golf, a sport that had traditionally lured dollars from luxury auto brands. “We’ve historically been really, really strong in golf, but we are starting to pull away a little bit,” Shanani said. 

The brand’s esports plays have included building a car especially for gamers — a modified version of the IS 350 F Sport sedan that debuted in February dressed up with a gamer-friendly design and features, including a custom-built gaming PC in the trunk. The brand only built one, but it drew enough attention that it “gave us confidence to go out and do more in the gaming space,” Shahani said.

In July, Lexus inked a deal to sponsor Los Angeles-based esports organization 100 Thieves in a pact that included renaming the group’s content creation house to the Lexus Content House.

As the year comes to a close, Lexus must adapt its marketing to account for the vehicle shortage plaguing the auto industry caused by tight microchip supplies. The situation could lead Lexus to curtail its traditional “December to Remember” sales event, as Automotive News recently reported. 

Shahani, on the podcast, acknowledged that Lexus might have to alter its ad messaging during the shortage, but “generally speaking we haven’t let our foot off the gas.”

“At most 2% of the people we talk to are in-market [to buy a car] at any given time … so the majority of our advertising frankly is planting a seed for the future and telling the story of our brand and why you should consider our brand.”