THE LEAPMOTOR ARCADE

Leapmotor wanted the UK to know its name, and PC’s plan was to get there through creators rather than the press. They set a target of 30 influencers and a reach of two million, and made the case to Leapmotor that an influencer event would deliver more than a traditional media launch could. That meant the event had to look good through a phone camera above everything else, because every guest was there to make content.

The budget was conservative for something this ambitious, and it stayed fixed. As the scope grew and everyone’s ambitions grew with it, there was no extra money, so every decision went back to the objective. If something would put more eyeballs on the B05, it stayed. If it was window dressing for its own sake, it came out. That discipline is a big part of why the event never looked or felt as if it had been built to a budget.

The cars worried us most from the start. We looked at more than 20 venues across London, Brighton and Manchester, and most of them fell at the same hurdle: getting two vehicles inside while leaving room for everything else. Ministry of Sound had the space as well as the name, but fitting the B05s into the courtyard exactly where the branding needed them meant we couldn’t rely on CAD drawings alone. We persuaded the venue that a test run was in their interest too, and everyone spent a day on site moving the car and the layout around in real time. It was worth every minute, because the only way to know how it would look through a creator’s phone was to stand there and look.

Behind the fun sat some properly complicated logistics. There was a long list of suppliers and access was tight, so the load-in and load-out schedule had to be managed very carefully. We dealt with the council over parking suspensions, worked alongside the venue, AV and branding teams, and handled the automotive side, from deliveries and drivers to positioning.

With pressure coming from every direction, communication was what held it all together. Alongside scheduled and ad hoc calls, we created and ran a playbook that recorded every element as it was discussed, visualised, priced and signed off. It became the single source of truth for everyone involved, and PC told us it let them focus on the fine detail instead of worrying about the bigger picture.

PC set a target of 30 influencers and a reach of two million. In the end 110 influencers posted 247 pieces of content, more people posted than had been formally invited, and the reach stood at 24.7 million when we sat down for the debrief, still climbing. Guests have been wearing the merch in their content ever since, which keeps the Leapmotor name in front of new audiences long after the night itself.

On the night, 187 guests came through the doors. With paparazzi outside, the queue was long enough to create some FOMO without keeping anyone waiting, and we stepped in to speed it up whenever it started to build. Inside, the room felt packed and buzzing, and the DJ and saxophonist built it into exactly the launch party PC had pictured.

Leapmotor’s MD, who we were told has very high standards, was over the moon, and told PC afterwards that he couldn’t think of a single thing that could have been done better. For a young brand launching its most distinctive car, it showed that a creator-led event can outperform a far bigger media spend, and the conversation about what comes next has already started.