Mitsubishi on ‘Drive Alive’ Euro Tour

BOSTON Mitsubishi Motors is preparing to launch a European campaign designed to capture the thrill of city driving. The work is from independent shop StrawberryFrog and includes a TV spot featuring the Jam’s 1982 pop song “Town Called Malice.”

The 30-second commercial breaking May 12 introduces the client’s Outlander compact sport utility vehicle. It shows a young woman picking up a hitchhiker and racing through the urban landscape, speeding downhill and zipping around tight curves. At the end, when the woman lets the young man out of the vehicle, we see that his arm hairs are standing on end.

The tagline, “Drive alive,” retained from StrawberryFrog’s past Mitsubishi efforts, appears on screen as a voiceover introduces the new Outlander.

“SUVs are [usually] marketed as cars you drive in the wilderness. We wanted to say this car is exciting to drive in the urban jungle,” said Scott Goodson, agency partner and creative director.

Annual spending is estimated at $35 million.

Print ads will run in newspapers and lifestyle magazines. Showing the cars perched on a grass “pedestal” to illustrate their status, the executions sport headlines such as “Work: your excuse for commuting” and “Remember how it felt to lose your virginity?”

The Amsterdam-based agency has also created outdoor and interactive elements for the Outlander push and will help the client launch more than a dozen other vehicles in the next two years, Goodson said.

The campaign will run in numerous markets including the U.K., France, Italy and Spain.

StrawberryFrog picked up the account last fall following a review of European agencies. Previously, the client had handled advertising through Asatsu in Amsterdam.

Interpublic’s Deutsch in Los Angeles handles Mitsubishi’s U.S. advertising.