Kahn Media

Kahn Media was selected as the agency of record for Lotus Cars in North America in 2019.  That same year, Lotus launched the Evora GT model in the US. With new ownership under Geely, the brand needed to increase its share of voice within the media to set itself up for success with its upcoming Evija hypercar and future models. The GT was the final version of Lotus’ nearly decade-old Evora platform.

The key with the entire campaign was to not only generate positive coverage within the automotive space, but to take the brand and its history to new audiences and into new mediums. 

To kick off the launch of the Evora GT model, Kahn Media organized and executed a multi-day press event catering to everyone from traditional automotive outlets like Autoblog and Motor1 to luxury lifestyle outlets like Robb Report, Forbes, Bloomberg and tech sites like CNET. 

Following this event, the fleet of press cars were put to work and loaned to key YouTube influencers and content creators, social media influencers, celebrities and traditional journalists for evaluation drives, instrumented testing and comparative analysis. Utilizing this strategy, the news about the driving joy of the Lotus Evora GT spread and the demand to drive these cars increased exponentially.

Beyond the positive media attention, Lotus vehicle sales went up 32% in North America in 2020 and the United States became the second largest sales volume market after Germany. Beyond the sales growth, Lotus was also in the Top 3 most talked about OEM brands in terms of share of voice and coverage based on Vuelio reports throughout 2020. 

GEARYS Beverly Hills tasked Kahn Media with refining the way the company connects and communicates with its potential customers. The team has helped GEARYS shoot and produce branded content and social media campaigns integrated with the company’s marketing goals and helped produce thought leadership pieces in top-tier publications through PR.

Kahn Media worked to transform the look and feel of GEARYS’ social media channels by curating and shooting content, reinforced its content marketing strategy by pitching seasonal gift guides and positioned them in mainstream and luxury-lifestyle outlets through PR.

The coronavirus pandemic had a profound impact on the wedding industry with event cancellations worldwide. As one of the leading luxury wedding registry destinations in the country, we developed a detailed PR campaign using GEARYs as a source for wedding registry trend stories, in particular how wedding registries have changed in the wake of the pandemic. 

This story, which we enterprised, was pitched to leading business publications as well as top-tier wedding publications such as Inside Weddings. We secured coverage in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and The Knot. 

Kahn Media works with the company’s in-house visuals and marketing team to curate seasonal shoots featuring entertaining essentials, gifts and fine jewelry. After each session is completed, our in-house graphic designers edit each photo set in order to meet GEARYS’ standard of quality as well as the standards of quality of its premier lifestyle vendors. 

GEARYS achieved excellent sales leading up to the pandemic and even managed to grow and maintain positive sales throughout the pandemic. Over the last year, the GEARYS Instagram channel has seen significant growth. Followers have increased nearly 10 percent due to cross-promotion with vendors and lifestyle influencers, and a consistent schedule of curated, themed lifestyle content that coincides with its marketing campaigns.

Aeromotive, an automotive performance fuel system brand partnered with Kahn Media with the specific goal in mind to grow direct-to-consumer sales through existing online channels. 

After analyzing their core customer demographic and top conversion paths, our digital marketing team then built separate digital sales funnels to address each of those segments.  Additionally our team evaluated their website to improve the customer journey and the sales funnel.

A social media, PR and influencer marketing strategy was incorporated alongside the digital advertising campaigns to help increase awareness in the Aeromotive brand. The multi-pronged approach created more online interest, which could then be captured through the newly created digital advertising funnels and turned into sales.    

In 2019, our team was able to increase direct sales year over year by 200%.

Aprilia, a division of the Piaggio Group, approached us with a unique challenge: it needed to launch its first middleweight sportbike, the RS660, and follow it with the launch of the upright version, the Tuono 660, for the American audience in the middle of the ongoing pandemic. 

Having corporate executives spread across the United States and Italy prevented a traditional media launch-style gathering, which compounded the limitations imposed by the pandemic. 

We accomplished both launches with a series of hybrid PR programs that started with our team producing a virtual unveil press conference, streaming content from two continents to a curated audience of media watching at home that we pitched. Following this digital launch, we organized two different COVID-compliant media experiences using two separate three-day events in Southern California.

To build out the virtual press conference presentation, Kahn Media captured a complete video suite of the RS660 along with footage of Aprilia executives discussing the motorcycle’s features and design. Kahn Media’s creative team in the U.S. collaborated with videographers in Italy to create a collection of content that the Kahn Media team edited and presented. 

A week following the virtual RS660 unveil, our PR team organized and pitched media invites to the first ride of the new bike, which was going to be hosted in Santa Barbara, California. One of the largest challenges was making sure we adhered to strict COVID guidelines to ensure the health and safety of all involved.

After both events concluded, over 30 different media outlets had reviewed the new Aprilia motorcycles with coverage appearing in key endemic outlets, large YouTube channels and with key influencers on social media. 

The assets and content created from both events have been used across Aprilia social media channels, by dealerships across the country and were shared not only by the outlets, but on each attendee’s personal social channels as well.

When the Petersen Automotive Museum was forced to close its doors to the public in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic Kahn Media was challenged to promote the museum’s virtual experiences, essentially helping them create a new business model to expand the museum’s reach and influence beyond its core market in Los Angeles and Southern California.

The largest virtual event during this major pivot was Petersen Car Week, the Petersen's digital answer to the cancellation of one of the largest and most prestigious automotive events of the year - Monterey Car Week. The museum partnered with vehicle manufacturers, renowned collectors and various concours events to create exclusive content for its YouTube channel that was released on a set schedule designed to emulate the daily events that would have taken place across the Monterey peninsula. Kahn Media was tasked with the promotion of the event to an international audience - creating buzz about the event in the weeks leading up to its launch and promoting the individual videos as they rolled out.

Leading up to each event, we pitched museum collection and shop tours as part of a "The Road to Car Week” campaign, reaching out to automotive, men's lifestyle, local and business outlets daily to create buzz surrounding the upcoming virtual events.

Ahead of Car Week, our creative and PR teams executed and produced several event videos for the museum, including a Car Week promo video, the Bring a Trailer interview with Malcolm Gladwell, Sonoma Speed Festival montage, The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering and a virtual car show. 

Thanks to its quick pivot to digital events during the pandemic and the publicity that Kahn Media secured during Petersen Car Week, the museum was voted World’s Best Automotive Museum in 2020 by a panel of 25 international judges.

Kahn Media secured a total of 96 stories about Petersen Car Week which delivered 27,091,478,250 total impressions.

In celebration of RUF’s 80th anniversary, Kahn Media produced and promoted the film “RUF: Love at the Red Line” which conveyed the history, legacy and passion of the RUF brand through the people who lived it.

The Documentary was a snapshot into the eight-decade history of RUF with the family playing a central role. It's about the Ruf family, the workers who build and maintain the cars, their friends, customers, and fans. RUF, more than most brands, is deeply personal and its reputation is based on a close, genuine relationship with the family whose name is on the car.

The work began with a storyboard - a vision of how we would tell the story, the key pieces of the puzzle, and the people we needed to help us tell it. The ensuing journey led us to coordinating interviews with Gran Tursimo creator Kazunori Yamauchi in Monterey, California; Bruce Meyer, Tim Pappas, and Ted Gushue in Los Angeles; and the RUF team in both Geneva, Switzerland and Pfaffenhausen, Germany. For interviews in German and Japanese, Kahn Media facilitated translations for captions. Filming was done in quiet offices, at outdoor car shows and, occasionally, at well over 125 mph on German country roads. 

The finished product was then uploaded to YouTube and distributed to select automotive, mainstream and luxury-lifestyle media, as well as to select social media influencers and through RUF’s social media accounts. 

The film was first shown at the RUF 80th anniversary banquet to close friends and customers before being released to the world via YouTube, Facebook and Instagram premiers, and pitched to major automotive and lifestyle publications for feature articles. Autoblog, Motor1, The Drive, Hypebeast and many other outlets covered the release, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of views and a film which will stand the test of time. 

The film is now the definitive source for the story of RUF and an excellent brand tool that is used at events and in museums. 

In March 2020, California’s “Safer at Home” orders forced the Mullin Automotive Museum to close its doors temporarily, posing the challenge of creating excitement around a museum with no in-person or media visitors. Additionally, the online and digital presentation of the museum was lacking, requiring updated branding and modernization of functionality.

As Agency of Record for the Mullin Automotive Museum, Kahn Media handles all of the public relations campaigns and messaging surrounding the museum. In 2020, the Mullin had to shift to a digital approach with a larger emphasis on its social media presence in response to the Safer at Home orders put in place in response to the pandemic. 

To keep the Mullin Automotive Museum in the news cycle, Kahn Media helped bring the museum to the public virtually. Each week, the team took viewers on a themed, docent-led tour, announced with a press release and media alert delivered to relevant media contacts.

To maximize lasting impact, Kahn Media focused on a produced video series called “Under the Hood” that premiered weekly on the Mullin YouTube channel.

To prepare for the museum’s reopening, the Kahn Media team worked to develop a new website that featured internal e-commerce, an online archive of the museum’s collection, an easy-to-navigate and mobile-friendly layout, and a welcoming tone applied cohesively across all segments of the site’s design.

The Mullin Automotive Museum Instagram channel followers have increased more than 18 percent to 12,218, while engagements have totaled 35,547. Since the debut of the “Under the Hood” series, the Mullin YouTube channel garnered 18,863 views, more than 1,300 hours watched, and 487 new subscribers.

This pivot to digital also helped secure media coverage in top automotive outlets like Hagerty, Autoweek, Automobile, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. 

Since it launched in August 2020, the site has garnered 10,827 unique visitors from all over the world.

The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering is considered by many to be the leading luxury-lifestyle event of Monterey Car Week due to its beautiful setting at Quail Lodge & Golf Club, relaxed garden-party atmosphere, world-class food and beverage, and curated display of the finest collector car and supercars in the world.

Kahn Media is tasked with managing media relations, PR, social media and influencer management, as well as coordinating with top automotive and lifestyle brands in the world to ensure a seamless series of press conferences and debuts at the event to facilitate maximum coverage following the show in the media.

Coverage of The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering and The Quail Motorcycle Gathering includes tier-one publications, automotive outlets, motorcycle outlets, broadcast news, luxury lifestyle publications, and local news outlets. Earned media impressions for 2019 totaled over six million.

Facebook engagement grew 24 percent year-over-year, with organic reach nearly doubling for each post. The Instagram audience grew over 60 percent, with a 38 percent total engagement increase.

Maximizing brand positioning and revenue for Ringbrothers, a premium billet parts manufacturer and world-class custom car builder through a strategic combination of social media, public relations and digital marketing.

Content creation has been key for all three prongs of our marketing efforts. Using the jaw-dropping automotive creations of Jim and Mike Ring, Kahn Media began building a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram using unique content from Ringbrothers builds as well as a behind the scenes look at the process.

To promote Mike and Jim Ring as experts in the automotive customization world, we produced and promoted a YouTube series called “Ringbrothers University” that featured step-by-step looks at how they prep, paint and finish their award-winning custom vehicles. Using the Facebook, Instagram and Google ad platforms, Kahn Media also launched paid digital marketing campaigns that targeted site visitors and owners of specific makes and models to bolster sales of the Ringbrothers billet product line.

Finally, traditional public relations campaigns have been key to reaching print, digital, and social media outlets - all of which have funneled traffic to Ringbrothers’ social pages and website, aiding in and the success of the digital marketing program. PR campaigns included press drives conducted out of our Los Angeles office, grand unveils at the SEMA Show and turnkey stories placed in enthusiast media outlets around the world. 

During 2020, Ringbrothers saw returns on its digital marketing spend of over 1,100%, while receiving 1.75 million impressions and over 39,000 clicks on those ads. Recognition in both traditional media as well as on social media has also poured in from large and respected outlets like Top Gear, Hot Rod, Autoblog, Jay Leno’s Garage, and The Drive. In the world of hot rods and muscle cars, Ringbrothers has become a household name with Kahn Media managing its brand along the way. 

From concept to creation and execution, we mapped out the plan for the entire “Altimeter” campaign.  Starting with the vehicle/camper design and wrap graphics, our creative team designed the custom, attention-grabbing graphics for the Lance Camper 855S  truck camper, which creatively highlighted the camper’s four-season capabilities.

The media and public relations plan for “Altimeter” consisted of a three-step strategy – pre-promotion, launch, and then activation. To pre-promote and tease the “Altimeter” project, a realistic rendering was created and used to alert the media about when and where the vehicle would be debuted. 

The vehicle debut plan had two components – the physical debut at the SEMA Show and the digital launch on the internet. As the SEMA Show kicked off and crowds flooded to the “Altimeter,” a press release and high-quality photo set produced by Kahn Media’s in-house creative team was sent to a targeted group of media outlets and influencers. 

The final step of the PR plan was the activation and experiential component which put influencers and journalists in the vehicle to go out on curated off-road/overland experiences. 

The combined public relations, marketing, and social media efforts resulted in over two-dozen stories on the build and upwards of 50 million impressions. Earned media coverage for Lance Camper and the “Altimeter” included websites like Automobile Magazine, Jalopnik, Gear Patrol, Motor1.com, and GearJunkie.com. Utilizing our network of influencers and content creators, we worked with YouTube influencer ThatDudeInBlue, world renowned automotive photographer Larry Chen, and YouTube sensation Hoonigan, among others, to create compelling video and photo content. This media coverage drove mainstream brand awareness of Lance Camper among millennials and the overland community, resulting in increased sales for the client.

- Impressions: 50M +
` 25 Earned Media Placements
- Video Views: 200k+ 

The Rodeo Drive Concours d’Elegance is a decades-old Father’s Day tradition in Beverly Hills. With pandemic restrictions still on the horizon in Spring 2021, Kahn Media helped the concours make a pivot. If we couldn’t bring the people to the cars, we would bring the cars to the people with a moving car show, rolling through the iconic boulevards of Beverly Hills.

We have had the opportunity to work with top brands in the automotive industry. Over the years we have developed our own technique, style and approach to creating automotive video for our clients. Our main objective always to tell their story.

This is a culmination of automotive footage from films, events, commercials and more that showcases some of what we are capable of producing for brands.

Let us tell your story, contact us today.

Press releases can sometimes be mundane and all blend together. But having your client’s release get tossed in the recycle bin is not an option. That is why we went retro, creating a unique ‘90s-style press kit to bring attention to the rising prices of cars from the same era on Bring a Trailer. Our creative team pulled out all the stops to ensure the press kit was properly period correct, using 35mm film slides and printed infographics. Of course, all the info was also available in a more modern format on a USB drive that looked like an old-school cassette tape. And a pair of retrolicious Oakley Frogskins were included to keep those strong ‘90s vibes going. The retro press kit wasn’t just a creative exercise but made to garner attention. It worked with stories on the rise of ‘90s car prices on Bring a Trailer appearing in Newsweek, MotorBiscuit, The Sun, and other publications along with multiple interviews for Bring a Trailer CEO Randy Nonneberg. Click out our fly video to see an unboxing of our very dank ‘90s press kit.