Artefact 5

For artefact 5, I have decided to look at the sale angle of of my arguement. From artefact 4 i found the responses to the car interactive experience most interesting as surprisingly people said that they felt they would be more likely to go through with buying online after this particular experience than something like a fridge magnet or key ring. This is because people in my focus group said that they felt they wouldn't be bothered to go through the whole process of designing something online in such detail for just a key ring, If it was a car however they would be keen to show it off and personalise it so only they had the design.

For Artefact 5, I have conducted a skype interview with the senior account manager of Lexus. Lexus have just launched an online configurator which allows users to change the colour/interior etc of the car they are interested in buying. In my interview i wanted to find out in what sort of way lexus steer their customers into experiencing the configurator.

• They do above the line advertising- they will include the url to the main lexus site on all tv and magazine adverts then once the user in on the website they signpost the user to the configurator hoping to drive users towards it.
• When they launched the configurator they sent out emails directly to existing customers that linked directly to the configurator.

I also found from my interview that they have just launched an iPad app available to dealers in car garages. This iPad app works in the same way as the online configurator. The dealers get to choose when to show the ipad app to the customer in relation to the sale. The idea is for the customer to test drive the car and once they have made the decision to purchase it, the dealership can offer the customer choices of the car in all specifications.