LAUNCHING TRUECAR+, THe 100% ONLINE CAR BUYING PLATFORM.
(SOFT) Product launch campaign
Role: Creative & Art Direction
TrueCar+ was the brand’s most ambitious move: a 100% online car-buying platform. But with the beta ready to launch, we were missing the "why." We had three weeks, a lean budget, and no formal brief to define the story and bring it to market.
The Mission: Position, Produce, Perform. The challenge was to take a complex technical product and make it feel human, convenient, and essential for modern shoppers. We needed to define what TrueCar+ stood for and execute a multi-channel campaign in record time.
The Sprint:
Strategy: Defined the core value prop—maximum flexibility from browsing to notarizing.
Creative: Developed a cohesive visual and verbal identity for the platform.
Execution: Delivered a full suite of paid, social, video, and in-product assets in weeks.
The Result: A successful soft launch that transformed a product beta into a resonant brand story, proving that high-impact creative doesn't always need a high-impact timeline.
The Visual Identity
To differentiate TrueCar+ from the core brand, we built a standalone identity that felt sleek and high-performance. We evolved our core palette into rich gradients paired with glowing neon accents, giving the system depth and a "digital-first" edge. The result was a visual language that could live anywhere—from static social ads to complex product environments—without losing its premium feel.
Designing the Premium Sibling.
We produced a 30-second CTV spot centered on a 3D vortex sequence. This served as the visual anchor for the entire product reveal. To maximize budget, we sourced emotive, authentic live-action clips from FilmSupply, avoiding the cost of a full shoot while maintaining a high-end human element. The video’s aesthetic—gradient backdrops and dynamic type—became the scalable framework for all paid and social media.
THE LANDING PAGE
HUMANIZING THE TRANSACTION
The TrueCar+ landing page had a massive checklist: introduce the platform, educate the shopper, and drive conversion across new, used, and EV inventory. But beyond the utility, it had to feel human.
Working ahead of definitive audience data, we leaned into a clear hypothesis: Gen Z and digitally native shoppers would be our early adopters. We featured Gen Z talent to mirror our target audience and maintained the warm, emotive tone established in our launch film. To test resonance, we led with convenience—positioning TrueCar+ not just as a tool, but as a simpler, more flexible lifestyle choice.
OOH CAMPAIGN
We tested four core themes—convenience, speed, ease, and control—to find what truly moved the needle. The data was definitive: Control resonated most with our high-intent, independent buyers.
The Tagline: Own the Process.
A MESSAGE THAT FINALLY STUCK
This insight became our North Star, leading to a punchy, dual-purpose product tagline:
"Own the car. And the process."
"Lease the car. Own the process."
The Result was a simple, confident OOH campaign that met shoppers exactly where they were: ready to take the wheel and do things on their own terms.
CONVERSION & FEEDBACK
Email played a key role in supporting the TrueCar+ launch—not just as a performance driver, but as a retention and learning tool. We designed a full funnel of emails to guide shoppers through the TrueCar+ buying process, increasing clarity and completion rates at each step.
We also used email to incentivize feedback: reaching out to customers who left carts behind to understand drop-off points, and following up with successful buyers to hear what worked. These insights helped shape both product improvements and future messaging.
Across all campaigns, we tested new headlines and framing, while using personalized modules to show shoppers where they left off, and what came next.
We developed a large suite of performance ads across paid channels. Some focused on vehicle-specific incentives, others were used in earlier messaging testing to emphasize the speed and simplicity of the experience.
We used the core visual identity to create modular, scalable layouts that could easily flex across vehicles, messages, and placements to deliver a campaign that felt cohesive but highly targeted, optimized for performance without losing brand integrity.
PERFORMANCE ADS
For paid social, we leaned into what works in-feed: people, motion, and personality. We used human-centric imagery to reflect younger, digitally savvy shoppers and brought the ads to life with playful animation—making each ad feel more like content than a campaign. The goal wasn’t to just sell but for these to be entertaining, relatable, and most importantly scroll-stopping
PAID SOCIAL ADS
We tapped UGC creators and influencers to produce native-style videos that felt right at home on TikTok. We crafted mini briefs with reference scripts and creative direction, guiding each creator to frame TrueCar+ through relatable, real-life scenarios.
The goal was to keep the content feeling organic—anchored in everyday moments—while weaving in branded UI sequences that made the product experience feel both discoverable and easy.
TIKTOK ADS
We partnered with Product Design and Product Marketing to bring the TrueCar+ brand into the product experience. Together, we identified key surfaces—like SRPs (Search Results Pages), VDPs (Vehicle Detail Pages), and VLAs (Vehicle Listing Ads)—where we could insert branded UI elements to both educate and activate.
Strategically placed banners and callouts helped highlight the benefits of TrueCar+ and directed shoppers toward vehicles that were 100% ready to buy online. It was a small but critical step in closing the loop between awareness and action—turning the product itself into a branded, conversion-ready experience.
UX/UI UPDATES
—CREDITS
Copywriting: Jeff Perreca, Eric Arnold
Art Direction: Wolf Den, Matt Olivotti
Video Editing, Motion & Animation: Wolf Den, Makiko Fukaya, Benny Baruch, John Flores
Branding and Visual Identity: Louis Alvardo, Austin Alcala, Taylor Watson, Nilsa Puentes
Influencer and UGC Creators Campaigns: Noah Peters