In the competitive landscape of electric vehicles, Lucid Motors worked with creative agency Giant Spoon to make a bold statement with its first ever brand campaign—“Compromise Nothing”—setting out to challenge conventions and offer a defiant new standard for not just EVs, but the entire automotive industry.
The brand conveys this by featuring powerful figures like Muhammad Ali, Nina Simone, and Neil Amstrong. By drawing parallels between these boundary-pushing icons and their individual pursuits of greatness, Lucid highlights its commitment to building EVs that can offer range, performance, and comfort–in other words, “the best damn car.”
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the campaign.
The Details:
- “Compromise Nothing” outranked many lux auto ads of the past year, with Attention in the 83rd category percentile, Change and Watchability in the 89th, and Information in the 85th:
- As intended, the creative both sparked viewer Curiosity as well as cemented brand awareness, with 79% recalling Lucid on an unaided basis after seeing the spot (vs a 73% lux auto norm).
- While the visuals impressed, it was the message that stood out at a disproportionately high rate to the higher-income American audience (at 2X the average).
- Informative on the brand’s positioning, “Compromise Nothing” was lighter on vehicle specifics (as intended) which led to a consideration rate at norm levels (with 46% of the audience indicating increased likelihood of purchase/visit).
- As intended, the creative both sparked viewer Curiosity as well as cemented brand awareness, with 79% recalling Lucid on an unaided basis after seeing the spot (vs a 73% lux auto norm).
- The ad performed similarly to Rivian’s recent :30 announcement of the new generation R1S and R1T models and BMW’s brand ad connecting the heart of a BMW to the “Soul” of the driver:
- A Nostalgic :60 announcing the return of Scout Motors enjoyed the highest resonance of recent lux auto ads while Jaguar’s launch video behind their rebranding struggled.
- Although Scout’s models will not see availability until 2027, their “Revival” and Rivian’s “Electric Adventure” appealed most successfully with nearer-term auto intenders (planning a purchase or lease of a new vehicle within the next year). “Compromise Nothing” also resonated positively with this target.
- Scout most successfully persuaded higher-income viewers, with the strongest purchase/visit intent rate of the group (59% Top 2 Box), followed by BMW at 53%.
- Among those planning a purchase or lease of a new auto within the next twelve months, 62% reported positive Lucid intent (at intender norms).
- A Nostalgic :60 announcing the return of Scout Motors enjoyed the highest resonance of recent lux auto ads while Jaguar’s launch video behind their rebranding struggled.
- Second-by-second trace results place engagement with the Lucid spot within the average range, with Scout starting out a bit slow but peaking at (and holding beyond) the :15 mark while BMW engagement was far quicker (due to early auto scenes):
- Comments on “Compromise Nothing” suggest that the positioning was well communicated and inspiring/impressive to many. Of course, some comments reflected the lack of product details (not the objective for this spot) and/or some sense of hyperbole.
Higher-income viewers on “Compromise Nothing” :60
“This was a powerful ad. Interspersing images of “the greats” with scenes of the car seems to inspire power and greatness. The visuals were stunning and seemed to convey the message effectively. I think this was a well-done ad.”
Female 21-35
“An awesome ad. An attention grabber. Powerful images of highly innovative people, e.g. Neil Armstrong, Nina Simone, Mohammed Ali, et al. The building music was also a strong narrator. Very impactful.”
Male 50+
“Lolololol! So hysterical that this is hyped like it’s on par with a rocket or a heavyweight fighter! It’s an EV. EVs are ugly. They are soulless. They are creepy. I would never consider buying one.”
Male 36-49
“I liked the ad. It was really inspiring. I like to see Muhammad Ali in it because he was an iconic figure in my past. I thought Lucid made a pretty decent looking car.”
Female 50+
“The ad was a little long. I thought it had good visual scenes and tried to drive an emotional message about how the vehicle relates to trailblazers.”
Male 36-49
“Really like that it took the approach of always wanting to be better and using some iconic figures to show that.”
Female 36-49
“I was a little confused and didn’t know what the car brand was. It was hard to see for a while.”
Female 36-49
“I liked the sports and historical figures in relation to the story, but it lacked information about the vehicle features itself.”
Male 50+
“Lucid is a car for people who want the best in life and work hard to get there.”
Female 36-49
- The motivational messaging was Empowering to higher-income viewers, as was the :60 “Scout Revival,” which portrayed a father/daughter relationship through the lens of the emotional attachments we have with our vehicles:
- Modeling of Lucid video ads (released to date) to uncover the creative aspects that drive higher purchase intent reveals that such ads are strongly likable and convey Change/something new to a high degree, with grabbing Attention also key but to a lesser extent (the Optimal Profile bars on the right-hand side of the top chart below):
- The green bars compare the :60 “Compromise Nothing” to this Optimal Profile (right side of the chart) and indicate that the new ad just knocked it out of the park on Relevance/relatability and Change while also delivering Information and Attention for Lucid.
- However, Information and Relevance in particular have, to date, not differentiated in driving consideration for the brand (the relatively small size of the blue bars on the Optimal Profile). This is not to say Lucid’s ads are not Relevant or Informative (just that to date, where present, these aspects in the brand’s creative haven’t linked strongly to intent).
- Given the profile differences, this launch :60 places (on the left side of the chart) squarely in the middle of the plot, indicative of an average potential to drive sales relative to other Lucid ads in the portfolio.
- In contrast, the :40 “Gravity Global Reveal” was more firmly in line with the brand’s Optimal Profile. As such, this ad placed high in the far upper right quadrant – and would be expected to drive higher relative intent (iSpot creative testing showed an above-norm 63% reported intent rate after a single view of this spot).
- Armed with this information on each individual creative (ads can be pretested to confirm potential even before airing), the brand’s media team can be empowered to allocate budget accordingly to optimize business results.
- Note that other brands will see different Optimal profiles.
- The green bars compare the :60 “Compromise Nothing” to this Optimal Profile (right side of the chart) and indicate that the new ad just knocked it out of the park on Relevance/relatability and Change while also delivering Information and Attention for Lucid.
Advertisers need to identify the creative that will drive business outcomes and ensure that in-market execution aligns against the highest potential ads.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: Giant Spoon