McLaren Cars & Coffee +
2026 | Creative Direction, Art Direction
Cars & Coffee+ is a community-driven activation project that redefined the traditional retailer-led event format for the Japanese market.
From planning to execution of the pilot event in Tokyo, we developed a complete ecosystem of assets, including flyers, eDM invitations, landing pages, venue panels, and branded novelty items, delivering a cohesive and premium experience across every touchpoint.
Won an RFP against competing agencies with a single strategic reframe: don't sell McLaren, build the third place for people who already own one. Not another retailer event, an ongoing brand platform designed around loyalty, belonging, and quality of connection rather than reach.
The concept, "Driven. Together.," sat deliberately between two existing poles, the exclusivity of a manufacturer owners' club and the looseness of a retailer touring event, landing on something official but unpretentious, built on three principles: Confident, Authentic, Minimal. Community growth was engineered too: a "+1" mechanic where owners bring guests as trusted sharers, not prospects, letting the community expand selectively through trust rather than marketing reach.
That thinking shaped everything downstream: three distinct location concepts (Urban Atelier, Coastal Flow, Morning Line), a full communication journey from announcement to closing, and a suite of bespoke assets, an original blend coffee, sensory cards, tumblers, stickers, a retailer playbook, each engineered as a touchpoint in the brand ritual, not merchandise. The approach was piloted at Daikanyama T-SITE before rolling out across the retailer network.
