Lucid Motors has a lot riding on the successful launch of its Gravity SUV, the company’s second EV after the luxurious and expensive Air sedan. To hype the Gravity, Lucid hired Hollywood It Boy Timothée Chalamet, who is currently the most famous young actor in the world after his star-turn as Bob Dylan in the Oscar-contending biopic “A Complete Unknown” and as Paul Atreides in the reboot of “Dune.”
Chalamet is no stranger to Lucid: paparazzi caught him driving an Air back in 2023, and according to Lucid’s press release announcing the news, he and the carmaker have been talking about joining forces ever since. He’s slated to appear as Lucid’s inaugural brand ambassador for a campaign for the Gravity later this year. “Together, we’ll show what’s possible when innovation and cultural relevance come together to move the world forward,” Lucid’s SVP of Marketing AK Oghoghomeh said in a statement.
The value of brand ambassadors
Chalamet is an apex celebrity these days, so Lucid is making a reasonable bet that he’ll attract customers to the brand. The company is also taking a page from the luxury playbook: bringing Chalamet onboard is a serious flex and shows that Lucid wants to convince Mercedes and BMW customers to make the switch to an all-electric automaker. And don’t forget, it isn’t entirely about reaching the high-net-worth crowd. The big-ticket Gravity is supposed to be followed by cheaper trim levels, so perhaps Chalamet’s younger fans will have the chance to buy in.
Still, it’s not clear that Hollywood
pitchmen (or women, if you’re a fan of Brie Larsen and Nissan) move the needle much on actual sales. The last truly noteworthy combination of automaker and celeb was probably Lincoln and Matthew McConaughey (the partnership seemed to slightly increase Lincoln sales after 2014). LeBron James worked with Kia, and more recently, Harrison Ford has pitched for Jeep and Christopher Walken poked fun at himself for a BMW Super Bowl commercial.
Chalamet plus a major marketing splash should provide Lucid with a meaningful brand bump. But the company’s sales operation still has to close deals to encourage the stock to recover from a 74-percent decline from 2021’s peak. Yes, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund is backstopping the balance sheet, but rampant cash-burn isn’t a winning proposition and Lucid’s recent proxy filing for a shareholder vote on reverse stock split is extremely concerning. Closing sales isn’t something that brand ambassadors can easily do, even when they’re contracted to make plenty of public appearances.
Blocking and tackling gets the job done
Tesla proved that for EV startups, traditional high-concept marketing is far less useful than getting cars on the road and building up considerable positive word-of-mouth. In marketing, the latter is known as “earned media,” whereas what Lucid is doing is called (no surprise) “paid media.”
My own view as somebody who used to be in the trenches with this kind of stuff is that startups are far better off taking the millions they could spend on celebrity endorsers and using it to showcase their products, anywhere and everywhere. However, Lucid has already minted a reputation for luxury, given that the Air sedan starts at about $70,000 and can climb to a stratospheric $250,000 for the supercar-grade Sapphire trim. Asking them to deviate from their destiny isn’t practical, and the consensus in the industry is that the Saudi’s are going to keep the money flowing.
To be fair, even though we live in a massively fragmented media environment, old-school campaigns that hinge of prominent personalities can still gain traction. Chalamet is certainly a logical choice, and a pretty impressive get for Lucid, if you want to court the attention of people under 40. But that becomes a debatable decision if most of your potential buyers are over 40 and even pushing 50 and beyond. At some point, a the luxury carmaker that Lucid wants to be has to chase the money and go after a demographic that’s affluent enough to pay the price.
