Brief:

• Luxury carmaker Lexus introduced a social media series that urges people to participate in the creative process that underpins the brand's emphasis on craftsmanship, per an announcement. "Lexus Creates" started this week with a video instruction on origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures.
• Lexus collaborated with Coco Sato, an origami artist who lives in the U.K., to show how to make progressively more complex objects out of folded paper, such as a cat, a leaf and a butterfly. Sato's background includes adding a modern edge to traditional Japanese art forms.
• Lexus's collaboration with Sato is part of an effort to showcase the value of creativity by showing how an artist can make artwork with "simple, timeless paper forms," the announcement said.

Insight:

Lexus' social video series aims to engage viewers in a creative process while highlighting its "pursuit of perfection" brand ethos.

The first part of the series with artist Coco Sato appears with three videos posted on Lexus' website. The brand urges followers to learn how to fold an origami cat on Instagram and Twitter, and take a lesson on how to qualify to become a takumi master artisan. The post has the hashtags #LexusCreates and #ExperienceAmazing in the caption.

Learn how to fold an origami cat with Coco Sato @giantorigami. Then, take one of the qualifying tests for takumi, the master artisans who craft Lexus vehicles by folding the cat with your non-dominant hand. https://t.co/6c9lIg5kSM #LexusCreates #ExperienceAmazing pic.twitter.com/IZ3psF1Wko

— Lexus (@Lexus) July 19, 2020

By posting the series to social media, Lexus can reach people who are using the platforms more often during the coronavirus pandemic, and who may be looking for activities like origami to keep themselves entertained while in isolation. Other brands have tried a similar tactic to engage social media users in their recent campaigns.

For example, General Mills' Oui by Yoplait brand of yogurt this month started a weekly video series on Instagram's IGTV to show how people can craft its glass packaging into decorative items. Home goods brand Rubbermaid recently sponsored a cooking class on Instagram Live with author Katherine Schwarzenegger to highlight its food-storage products while connecting with people who are spending more time in the kitchen instead of going out to eat.

Lexus' "Lexus Creates" series is among its recent digital media efforts to connect with younger audiences who are more difficult to reach through traditional media outlets like cable and broadcast TV. The car brand last month created an app to give smartphone users an immersive augmented reality preview of a redesigned sedan. The app also included a gamification feature that let people virtually test-drive the car as if it were a remote-control toy.

In March, Lexus also released a six-part podcast titled "Go and See" to give listeners a behind-the-scenes account of how it designs cars. Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell hosted the podcast that toured the Lexus headquarters and followed its engineers and executives.