• by Karl Greenberg , February 11, 2013

Toyota's Scion division is continuing its focus on art, personalization and entrepreneurship with "Make Every Second Count." The effort, via San Francisco-based Attik, which has been Scion's AOR since the brand's inception, focuses on five young entrepreneurs representing a variety of business categories.

Each documents his or her life and talks about how Scion represents said lifestyles and endeavors. The campaign comprises an online video series and a pointillistic TV ad featuring one-second snippets from each of the videos. Thus the "Every Second" headline.

Scion helped out, giving each of the five -- Oakland-based chef, author and activist Bryant Terry; Travis Hayes Busse, a San Francisco music promoter; L.A.-based bicycle retailer and cycling advocate Daniel Farahirad; Levi Maestro, a Los Angeles filmmaker and Web personality, and Lisa Nativo, a food truck owner in L.A. -- a handheld video camera, and each also got a different Scion car model for two weeks. 

Once finished, they handed their footage to documentarian Doug Pray, who grabbed the best stuff from each and made a series of three-minute films that live on Scion's YouTube channel and home page. For traditional TV there are three national broadcast spots, per the automaker. 

The "Make Every Second Count" effort extends "What Moves You," Scion's integrated campaign launched last fall to coincide with the introduction of the Scion FR-S sports car and iQ mini-subcompact. The campaign also adheres to the brand proposition has articulated since its launch in 2003: Scion (versus everyone else) is about personalization and using after-market possibilities to express oneself. Scion might get more traction now than it did when Toyota launched the brand in 2003: social media channels like Facebook and Twitter have made self-expression, self branding, and all kinds of self-promotion almost mandatory. 

Scion also has used the "What Moves You" platform to argue that it isn't a something-for-everyone brand, but a brand meant to appeal to a younger more experimental crowed. Others -- Nissan, when it launched the "Shift_" campaign, used that "we're not a one-size fits all brand" idea to help create its more performance-oriented identity. The Scion campaign also puts more of a spotlight on the brand's long-time promotional relationship with art, music, design and automotive enthusiasts.

In October, Scion extended "What Moves You" with "Motivate," offering creative types and artists a chance to link up with business mentors, receive up to $10,000, and get a Scion vehicle.