Using music podcasts and a blog ad buy, Toyota's luxury brand Lexus is rolling out a four-week campaign aimed at African-Americans, writes ClickZ. The campaign for the IS sport sedan revolves around microsite LexusFusion.com, via which visitors can subscribe to podcasts and email friends. The podcasts consist of roughly 25 minutes of hip-hop/jazz fusion. A DJ intro mentions the Lexus IS, and the music is interspersed with radio spots. Lexus is also running a series of specially designed creatives on the Blogads music channel.

Lexus has made blogs a "pretty heavy part" of the ad campaign, according to DerekBonney, SVP at ImagineThat, the independent interactive shop that developed the online portion of the effort. The radio spots are produced by Lexus's multicultural agency Burrell, a unit of Publicis; the podcasts themselves are also sponsored by Vibe Magazine.

Other buys, featuring Flash creative, will run on BET.com, BlackPlanet.com and Vibe.com. Demographically targeted opt-in email lists have been rented to drive traffic to the microsite.