The Brief

In September 2017 we were approached by the NZ Rolls Royce Importer for a concept to support the launch of the new Phantom, which only happens every 20 years with this model. The Client wanted to hold this launch at the old Kim Dot Com mansion at Coatesville for a fairly exclusive guest list of around 400 people who arrived via every luxury brand car imaginable – or helicopters!

A major part of this launch was the strong personal desire of the Owner of the NZ Rolls Royce Importer/Dealership, to win a competition that the Rolls Royce Head Office in the UK had set up to see which world-wide Rolls Royce Importer or Dealer could produce the “best” launch of their new flagship car.

Solution

We came up with the concept of having the Guests arrive with a completely hidden Phantom and virtually no obvious technology that might give any clue as to where or how the car would eventually be revealed. Guests arrived at sunset to a string quartet along with food, drinks and unfettered access to this magnificent house and gardens for almost two hours until complete darkness had taken hold. Guests were then ushered out into the courtyard and all house lights were extinguished.

We had assembled a soundscape that contained jungle insect noises for a minute while everyone took their places and from over the horizon came a blinding light that was heading directly towards the house. As it approached we crept up the volume of a Viet Nam helicopter recording to a crescendo as “the light” finally arrived and hovered over the centre of the courtyard. The hovering “light” then suddenly extinguished as did the helicopter soundtrack to be replaced by the low-frequency heartbeats at high volume in the darkness for a few seconds. A voice-over announced the reveal of the car then it burst out of hiding through a fabric reveal, shrouded in smoke and moving lights then drove out into the courtyard.

Outcome

It was easy to see just how many Guests had been wowed by just counting the number of phones held high, recording this reveal.

More importantly, in March this year at the annual world-wide Rolls Royce Dealer’s conference in the UK, the video of the NZ launch was shown to everyone and NZ was announced as the winner which pleased our Client no end. He also mentioned that our video was the only video shown throughout the entire conference.