Date: 6 Jan 2045, 10:05 am
From: danial3@ unpluggedmotors.com
To: creative@ishtehari.com
Subject: New Brief: Project Vroom

Hey Team,
Appreciate the auto-reactions on my bot’s latest LinkedIn post. Of the 34,552 agencies that responded, my agentic AI ranked you in the top five for ‘human-first creative thinking’ – whatever that still means in 2045. So here is your shot.

Quick intro: Danial III here. Yes, from that family. Real estate, tech, mobility, blah, blah. But my vision is drastically different from what my grandparents’ thought processes were.

Say hello to Unplugged Motors, an internal combustion engine (ICE) car brand. The idea hit me during my last neural augmentation session in Beijing. Between all the sterilised perfection and algorithmically curated experiences, I stumbled into an illegal bunker cafe where they brewed coffee over – wait for it – actual wood fire. Inefficient. Smoky. Glorious.

And it made me think: progress has peaked. Time to regress. So we are launching Vroom, an unapologetic, gas-guzzling, smoke-belching ICE car. Real mechanical engine, no batteries. Runs on the original dinosaur juice – petrol. I know, we haven’t had functioning fuel pumps since the Saudi oil crash of 2032, but I’m talking to the new Crown Prince about using some of the old stock and repurposing it for us here in Pakistan. Turns out they miss the old days too (who knew?). Now the brief:

1. Dual Audiences
Gen Alpha: Now in their mid-30s. They grew up on zero-friction EVs, autopilot everything, and have early onset midlife crises
because their childhood TikTok feeds rewired their dopamine thresholds.
Gen Beta: 18-25. They are financially independent (grandparent bitcoin inheritance), born creators and have never heard an engine roar unless it was on OpenAI’s YouTube archives.

We need to make both cohorts desire what they never knew they missed: chaos, noise and machines that leak (fluids and character).

2. Positioning
This is not transport. This is anti-progress. It’s a statement of rebellion against seamlessness. Our car demands attention, sweat – and yes, time. This is about feeling the rumble, not letting your bot plan your commute to the 12th VR therapy session.

3. Product Functional Attributes
This is not your standard personal transport vehicle. Vroom is deliberately analogue. No touchscreens, no holograms, no neural sync. The cabin has zero screens. Instead? Dials. Gauges. Knobs. Things you turn and push and pull – with your hands. It has a minimal air filtration system, but no air conditioning. It will have ‘handles’ that you rotate to roll down the windows.

A point of surprise might be that the acceleration is not instant. Drivers will experience a tell-tale ‘lag’ because this machine uses combustion, not zero-friction magnetic drives. And when you push the pedal, it makes loud mechanical sounds – from an actual engine. We will need to educate the audience that this is not a malfunction. They need to understand it is part of the experience.

The engine is a repurposed 2.4 litre four-cylinder. We have secured a massive inventory that was lying unused after a popular manufacturer went bankrupt after the government abolished import taxes in 2025. Users will need to change gears manually by engaging what is called a ‘clutch’ – a process that requires synchronised arm and leg movement. So it will also require mental attention whilst driving. Steering? Manual. No autopilot. No lane-assist. If you hit something, that’s on you (add a legal fine print somewhere about this in your pitch). And yes, it emits exhaust. It’s going to be visible and probably smelly. Again, intentional. It operates with a physical key (made out of metal), so no biometric ID or near-field communication.

4. Tone and Voice
Old-money arrogance meets 2020s Hollywood. You might want to go through classics such as Fast & Furious 17.5 as a reference.

5. Creative Direction
Visuals should be authentic and flawed. Show the car tearing through post-apocalypse racetracks, abandoned Martian testing domes and the occasional rusted EV graveyard. Absolutely no polished CGI. This is not a pitch for another EV brand. I would advise you to find real designers, illustrators and calligraphers to do this by hand rather than using gen AI.

6. Media Strategy
Forget Apple Metaverse 5.0. We want street cred. Think underground podcasts, retro graffiti tags, hand-typed messages in forums. I want you to focus on making a physical presence with this campaign. Screen or hologram-based ads will not cut it.

7. Brand Guidelines
No words like eco, green, or carbon-neutral.
Do not place the car next to lush green environments unless it is ironically parked over an old recycling plant.
Hero shots to scream flawed luxury, not corporate perfection. Zero influencer partnerships. No ‘creator collabs.’ If any agency team member mentions user generated content, you’re off the pitch.

8. No-Go Areas:
No nostalgia for the 20th century. Neither you nor I remember it. Even our AI systems had to deep-crawl obsolete databases to figure out what ‘Indus Corolla’ was.
No ‘safety-first’ angles. Our audience is not buying this to feel safe.
No user journeys, no empathy maps. Assume they have outsourced emotions to their AI therapists.
Do not refer to Elon Musk, his crash, or anything related to Mars’ colonisation.

9. Submission Requirements
I expect the first round of thinking tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Generous by my standards. I am giving you more time than usual because I know your AI systems may not be calibrated for such a… retro case. Complete with key visuals, mock-ups, and at least 60 executions that will make my compliance systems flag this. In short, looking forward to seeing something out
of the box.

Cheers Danial III, Founder & CMO, Unplugged Motors Pvt Ltd
Snap: teesra_danial

P.S. We are not paying the customary 0.001 btc to our participating agencies for this pitch. We are going all-in on the retro-first mantra, so the pitches are going to be compensation-free like in the old days.

Umair Kazi is Partner, Ishtehari.