Lexus Messes With People’s Heads to Promote Pre-Cognitive Safety Features

By adpock - May 19, 2015

lexus pre-cognitive features

Lexus is so proud of the new LS’s pre-cognitive safety systems, they’re willing to “mess with people’s heads” to show off how well they work. That’s a direct quote from the Lexus video below.

As shown in the video, a Lexus marketing campaign was recently launched in Johannesburg, South Africa that makes people think a billboard actually knows what they’re thinking. The way Lexus accomplishes this is by planting a variety of visual prompts that cause drivers to subconsciously think of the queen of hearts. After five blocks of heart and queen allusions, a billboard tells folks “We Know What Card You Are Thinking Of.” When the billboard flashes the queen of hearts, drivers are shocked to find that the billboard was right on the money.

Then just as the driver’s are wondering how the billboard did that, the tag line pops up: “The Lexus Keeps You Safe By Predicting What’s Ahead.”

All of this is very clever indeed, much like the pre-cognitive tech Lexus is bringing awareness to, like the Stereo Camera, Near-Infrared Illuminator, and Millimeter-wave Radar. And we get it, pre-cog systems sense what’s ahead and react accordingly.

But is it a good idea to stack the deck in Lexus’s favor? Is the sleight-of-hand really sending the right message? I mean, the pre-cognitive safety features really work, without any magic involved. They may seem like magic, but they’re not. So why trick people to get the point across?

I’m no mentalist, but am I over-thinking it?