Is the New Lotus For You? Stack Tests Drivers with Online Game

Lotus is supporting the European launch of its high performance Evora 400 sports car with an unconventional campaign that uses a series of tests to exclude drivers who are not up to speed.

Created by Stack, the online activity cheekily tells drivers who don’t have the reaction speeds and other skills needed to drive the Evora 400 that ‘#itsnotforyou’.

The agency has created an online game, the Lotus Evora Agility Test, to assess driver skills. 

Based on the test used in the training of fighter jet pilots, it can be played on the digital banner where it first appears before clicking through to the main event.

Lotus has signed an exclusive partnership with Bloomberg Media, which will host the game on its websites, to reach a highly competitive audience that is in the market for a car that is engineered in Britain and costs in excess of £70,000.

The ‘#itsnotforyou’ game tests skills including eye co-ordination and reaction times before informing the player whether or not they have passed the challenge. Those that are successful are eligible to find out more about the Evora 400, book a test drive or order a car, while those who aren’t up to the mark are told to stick with a less challenging alternative with messages such as: “Not quite enough, stick with the Porsche.”

Participation in the campaign will be encouraged by Bloomberg’s analytics to reach people in the Lotus target audience. Global leaderboards based on a city and country basis will rank competitors, who can pass on the challenge to friends and colleagues. 

Kenyon Neads, Head of Marketing at Lotus said: “Given the audience includes some of the most competitive people on the planet, this potential challenge to their man or womanhood stokes their curiosity and will make them desperate to show they have got what it takes to handle the Evora. ‘#itsnotforyou’ is a remarkably engaging, irreverent and shareable campaign for a remarkably agile and potent new super car.”

Ben Stephens, the CEO of Stack, said: “With a modest budget, unlike its rivals, a campaign was required to tell this terrific story to a highly selective audience. So instead of taking the utterly straightforward and obvious approach of extolling the virtues of the new Evora 400, Lotus decided to live up to its unconventional spirit and do quite the opposite.”