Custom cars drive sales, which, ironically, is the same thing Custom Cars asked us to do. You know them from hotdog vans & energy drink cars, but we know them as true businessfolk who care about your clients’ success, whether that’s a fleet of branded vehicles or a one-time exhibit at a pet food conference.

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As out-of-touch companies push digital as the end-all solution for every business problem, be it crypto or web3, we set out to combat that mentality. Literally.

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We started by creating a fake company, Boering Marketing, with CEO Tod Morrison lambasting branded vehicles as an outdated marketing tactic. Custom Cars laughed it off. Their mascot, Tuffy, didn’t. The next morning, news broke that Tuffy had stolen the company car & was driving from California to New York to punch Tod Morrison in the face.

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Actors aside, this was a very real marketing campaign. Tuffy & stowaway camera operator, Ramesh Shahid, were actually driving across the United States, were actually stopping in dozens of cities, were actually going to slam down in New York City. This was all of Custom Cars’ annual marketing budget, so we wanted to make it count with an event that epitomized what the team stood for: using a branded vehicle to draw nationwide attention to a relatively unknown company.

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Real-time events can be messy, but we had the journey planned months in advance, with actors briefed “Blair Witch” style on story beats that needed to occur in specific towns. This created the illusion of spontaneity, where Ramesh would appear on scripted business podcasts & upload road trip vlogs to the company TikTok, Tuffy sparring with business school mascots, Tod giving Zoom press conferences that poke fun at the chronically-online. While the event lasted a sweet 2 months, the characters & branding will carry well-beyond.