If you grew up watching Back to the Future and wondering when you’ll finally get to see a hoverboard, CHI&Partners and Lexus feel your pain. According to a new spot from the agency, “Lexus has created a real, rideable hoverboard.”
The spot opens on a skateboarder, followed by the line “There is no such thing as impossible.” After showing what appears to be a board hovering in midair with some sort of smoke escaping out an exhaust pipe, the spot quotes Lexus chief engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi, who said “It’s just a matter of figuring out how.” The teaser of a spot ends by inviting viewers to follow the action at #LexusHover. Notably, the ad ends before showing the board supporting any weight, making the title a bit misleading.
According to a press release, the Lexus Hoverboard “combines liquid-nitrogen-cooled superconductors and permanent magnets to achieve amazing frictionless movement” via magnetic levitation. Whether or not Lexus can actually pull off something resembling viewers’ Back to the Future expectations remains to be seen, but the agency promises to release more images of the board across digital, social and editorial media channels in the lead-up to its reveal at Lexus’ “Amazing in Motion” project later this year. Well, promising the (seemingly) impossible is one way to get people’s attention.
“Each new Lexus ‘Amazing in Motion’ project has been more boundary-breaking than the last, and we’re incredibly proud of all three,” said Monty Verdi, creative director at CHI&Partners, who worked with Brad Woolf and Dan Bailey on the project. “This time, we wanted to achieve something truly unimaginable, and we’ve worked tirelessly to make it happen. Now the Lexus Hoverboard is a reality, we’re counting down the days until the world gets to see it in motion. We hope millions of people across the world will join us in our countdown.”