Lucid Hires Timothée Chalamet To Sell $96,000 Gravity Suvs

Lucid Motors

Lucid Motors has a batch riding connected nan successful motorboat of its Gravity SUV, nan company's 2nd EV aft nan luxurious and costly Air sedan. To hype nan Gravity, Lucid hired Hollywood It Boy Timothée Chalamet, who is presently nan astir celebrated young character successful nan world aft his star-turn arsenic Bob Dylan successful nan Oscar-contending biopic "A Complete Unknown" and arsenic Paul Atreides successful nan reboot of "Dune."

Chalamet is nary alien to Lucid: paparazzi caught him driving an Air backmost successful 2023, and according to Lucid's property merchandise announcing nan news, he and nan carmaker person been talking astir joining forces ever since. He's slated to look arsenic Lucid's inaugural marque ambassador for a run for nan Gravity later this year. "Together, we'll show what's imaginable erstwhile invention and taste relevance travel together to move nan world forward," Lucid's SVP of Marketing AK Oghoghomeh said successful a statement. 

Lucid Motors

Chalamet is an apex personage these days, truthful Lucid is making a reasonable stake that he'll pull customers to nan brand. The institution is besides taking a page from nan luxury playbook: bringing Chalamet onboard is simply a superior flex and shows that Lucid wants to person Mercedes and BMW customers to make nan move to an all-electric automaker. And don't forget, it isn't wholly astir reaching nan high-net-worth crowd. The big-ticket Gravity is expected to beryllium followed by cheaper trim levels, truthful possibly Chalamet's younger fans will person nan chance to bargain in. 

Still, it's not clear that Hollywood

 pitchmen (or women, if you're a instrumentality of Brie Larsen and Nissan) move nan needle overmuch connected existent sales. The past genuinely noteworthy operation of automaker and celeb was astir apt Lincoln and Matthew McConaughey (the business seemed to slightly summation Lincoln income aft 2014). LeBron James worked pinch Kia, and much recently, Harrison Ford has sounded for Jeep and Christopher Walken poked nosy astatine himself for a BMW Super Bowl commercial.

Chalamet positive a awesome trading scatter should supply Lucid pinch a meaningful marque bump. But nan company's income cognition still has to adjacent deals to promote nan banal to retrieve from a 74-percent diminution from 2021's peak. Yes, nan Saudi sovereign wealthiness money is backstopping nan equilibrium sheet, but rampant cash-burn isn't a winning proposition and Lucid's caller proxy filing for a shareholder ballot connected reverse banal split is highly concerning. Closing income isn't thing that marque ambassadors tin easy do, moreover erstwhile they're contracted to make plentifulness of nationalist appearances.

Lucid Motors

Tesla proved that for EV startups, accepted high-concept trading is acold little useful than getting cars connected nan roadworthy and building up sizeable affirmative word-of-mouth. In marketing, nan second is known arsenic "earned media," whereas what Lucid is doing is called (no surprise) "paid media."

My ain position arsenic personification who utilized to beryllium successful nan trenches pinch this benignant of worldly is that startups are acold amended disconnected taking nan millions they could walk connected personage endorsers and utilizing it to showcase their products, anyplace and everywhere. However, Lucid has already minted a estimation for luxury, fixed that nan Air sedan starts astatine astir $70,000 and tin climb to a stratospheric $250,000 for nan supercar-grade Sapphire trim. Asking them to deviate from their destiny isn't practical, and nan statement successful nan manufacture is that nan Saudi's are going to support nan money flowing.

To beryllium fair, moreover though we unrecorded successful a massively fragmented media environment, old-school campaigns that hinge of salient personalities tin still summation traction. Chalamet is surely a logical choice, and a beautiful awesome get for Lucid, if you want to tribunal nan attraction of group nether 40. But that becomes a debatable determination if astir of your imaginable buyers are complete 40 and moreover pushing 50 and beyond. At immoderate point, a nan luxury carmaker that Lucid wants to beryllium has to pursuit nan money and spell aft a demographic that's able capable to salary nan price.