While promoting its Nautilus SUV earlier this year, Lincoln showed that music could accomplish what words alone could not, using a catchy song to shift the auto brand’s trajectory and capture the attention of a millennial audience that had barely noticed it.

As Lincoln prepared to launch the SUV, the automaker was beset by low awareness from millennials, who associated the Lincoln brand with their parents. Working with agency Hudson Rouge, Lincoln’s commercial for its Nautilus SUV included an original backing track so catchy that viewers sought information about the artist and where they could download the tune, only to reach dead ends—the song was available only by watching (and rewatching) the ad. The ad on YouTube has over half a million views.

Some fans reached out directly to Lincoln executives on LinkedIn, others peppered social handles and participated in a Reddit forum devoted to unraveling the mystery. “Gah ... why would they do this to us? This track absolutely SLAPS!” bemoaned one Redditor.

Just as conversation reached a peak, Lincoln dropped the full-length song, revealing its title and artist: “Kaleidoscope Bliss (The Nautilus Song)” by Heavy Duty Projects, the music studio that produced the track for Lincoln. A YouTube video featuring the full-length song garnered over 30,000 views and the brand built on the momentum with a collaboration with brand ambassador Serena Williams, and a 3D showroom experience showing off the Nautilus’ Revel Audio system, part of a raft of features meant to attract millennials to the Nautilus model.

Also read: Lincoln Nautilus is rejuvenating the Ford-owned luxury brand

Lincoln’s inscrutable earworm earned 4,516 hours of free airplay, and helped the campaign become Lincoln’s most successful launch of the year, according to Hudson Rouge. In all, Lincoln received 2.9 million video views, 1.78 million impressions, 108,395 song plays, 82,833 engagements and a 9.7% increase in awareness among millennials, according to Hudson Range. 

“Lincoln, you rock! Love the song,” one YouTube commenter said. “Makes me want to buy a Lincoln and hit the road with this tune blasting. ❤😊”

FINALIST

Buick, “Exceptional by design”

Entrant: Buick

Buick’s renewal was already underway when research found that the General Motors-owned brand was underestimated. Consumers were surprised to find that Buick was a nicer vehicle than they thought, pointing to a “white space” between mass market and luxury that Buick zoomed into with its new “Exceptional by design” tagline, accompanied by marketing that the brand stated uses a “more modern, visual and sensory-focused approach.”

The brand-led effort called attention to Buick’s points of difference—the sculptural beauty of its body style, the fine details of its finishes and its redesigned shield. These are shown off in a video leveraging the “Dream of Life” speech by 20th-century scholar and philosopher Alan Watts, which served as a dramatic accompaniment to the history of Buick and where it is headed.

The 2024 Global Automotive Marketing Awards, a program created and run by Ad Age and Automotive News, is sponsored by TikTok and Experian. For more information about the program, please visit AdAge.com/AutoAwards.

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