To promote the sports model MX-5, Mazda created “Mazda Drives: The Sound of
Tomorrow’ campaign, the highlight of which is a special DJ concert by DJ Licious,
six-time Tomorrowland DJ, with flair as the Mazda MX-5 made music on a large
vinyl record in place of a pick-up needle.
The Sound of Tomorrow is being beautifully advertised through the image of a car
making music both in the literal and the figurative sense. The set is a huge vinyl
record and the Mazda MX-5 will create music by driving on it. The car’s precise and
sharp steering enables it to act as a replacement pick-up needle.
The idea was brought forward by advertising agency, These Days, and the
production company, MoJuice, took care of the tech setup, the production of the clip
and the recommended use of BlackTrax real-time motion tracking system.
The tracking was the missing component between all the parts. BlackTrax was the
right solution as not only its tracking is real-time but also BlackTrax outputs the
open source RTTrP protocol for anyone to read or write to, and receive the
positional data making custom solutions possible.
Joachim Sas, marketing director at Mazda Belux, said: “The object of this campaign
is to establish the link between Mazda and music in general and Tomorrowland in
particular.’
To be able to pull this off the Mazda MX-5 was equipped with BlackTrax Beacons
using IR LEDs and eight BlackTrax cameras. In real-time, these picked up the
signals of movement of the car at its precise position on a reconstructed model of a
“vinyl’. The spiral on the vinyl is actually the coded music. The information was then
delivered to the sound equipment that was based on instructions from the car’s
movement, played the track.
There was a great amount of technology brought for this endeavour but the most
essential thing to the success of this project was a good partnership between the DJ
and the driver. The DJ must be able to give the driver pointers to drive faster,
slower or change direction.
DJ Licious, six-time Tomorrowland DJ, said: “The concept of having to drive a car
like a pick-up needle was absolutely amazing. Synchronising the car’s laser with the
sound equipment and giving precise instructions to a highly talented driver is
something I don’t get to do every day.’
The MX-5 is the ideal car for this experiment because it is compact, it has the right
engine and the required distinguished characteristics on top of its fantastic steering.
Mazda’s MX-5 makes beautiful music for its Sound of Tomorrow campaign.
Find out more about the campaign at: http://soundoftomorrow.be/en
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