Ian Grody didn’t set out to make car commercials. The Giant Spoon creative spent years writing space operas for Sci Fi and country musicals for CMT, collecting development deals that decorated executives’ shelves but never made it to screen. Then he wrote some ads. They actually got made. That feeling—making things instead of theorizing them—shifted everything.
Seven years into his tenure at Giant Spoon, Grody just helped orchestrate something that doesn’t look like a car spot at all. It looks like cinema.
The Lucid Gravity campaign starring Timothée Chalamet and directed by James Mangold is a government facility heist that lands somewhere between Sugar Land Express and Close Encounters—a pulpy drive-in movie elevated to luxury. It’s the kind of work that shows up in GQ and Rolling Stone, not just trade publications.
From “compromise nothing” to UAPs beaming down SUVs
Eighteen months ago, Giant Spoon won the Lucid business on the strength of a strategic platform developed by strategist Corbin Brown: “compromise nothing.” The idea is simple—every other car makes you leave something on the table. Speed, space, performance, pleasure. Lucid gives you everything.
After establishing that foundation in January, the brief evolved: build Lucid into culture. Make them matter beyond specs.
The Lucid Gravity SUV had such an otherworldly collection of features that Grody and the team landed on a truth: it’s not of this earth. So they built a brand universe around that idea. Influencer posts with CG elements. UAPs beaming down vehicles you could glimpse. An experiential moment where a massive UAP landed over their Meatpacking District studio and beamed down a chromed-out SUV.
What happens after a UAP lands on Earth? It gets recovered and brought to a secret government facility for study. That became the spot.
The best sale is telling the truth
Here’s where most campaigns would fall apart. Getting Timothée Chalamet. Convincing James Mangold to direct. Licensing The Damned’s “Burning Love” instead of composing something cheaper. Selling a client on cinema-level ambition for a car launch.
Grody’s approach, learned from his wife who spent 20 years in luxury fashion: the best sale is a non-sale.
“You don’t win by selling anything,” Grody explains. “No one wants the smarmy salesperson trying to put one over on them. You tell the truth. You don’t pull punches. But you’re honest about what’s going to be best for the work and their business.”
When Giant Spoon advocated for licensing “Burning Love”—not the easiest conversation given the expense—they did it because something would be conspicuously missing without it. They had Timothée Chalamet, Larson Thompson, James Mangold, the stunt crew from Ford v Ferrari, and cinematography that demanded a certain sonic ambition.
The argument wasn’t “this would be cool.” It was “this is correct.”
When the director never leaves
Editorial became the proving ground. Grody brought in JoJo King from Cabin, an editor who loves films, not commercials. King had never worked with Mangold before, but Grody put his work alongside other talented editors and Mangold said yes.
Then came the balancing act. Two immovable objects—Grody and Mangold—both with strong opinions, both working in the same direction. And King bringing his voice into the mix.
Here’s what made it work: Mangold never left. Most directors thank you at the top of the process, check in at milestones, then disappear. Mangold stayed for everything. Not because he had to. Because he cared that much about getting to the best possible product.
“He didn’t care about the way things generally are supposed to go,” Grody says. “He’s like, what’s going to get us to the best product? I’m here for it.”
Building references, then transcending them
Chalamet wasn’t just talent for hire. He was on board from single-slide concepts through casting and development. The relationship between him and Larson Thompson took inspiration from Sugar Land Express. There’s a Close Encounters moment inside the hangar. The whole thing channels James Dean in The Blob—young people relatable and rebellious enough to be charismatic, finding themselves in otherworldly trouble.
“To me, this is a pulpy Roger Corman drive-in movie elevated to the level of luxury,” Grody says.
And it required Chalamet’s maturity as an artist. In lesser hands, this concept becomes gimmicky celebrity endorsement. But Chalamet represents the next generation of global icons, and Lucid gets to position themselves as a new icon by association.
Creative Director Brian Ortiz and his partner Lexi Rodriguez brought the Tucson detail—because where else would this land? The team built something that works whether you’ve been following the UAP campaign or you’re coming in cold.
The rules only apply when the work isn’t good
Grody’s first ad was written at 15 for a Jacuzzi after getting fired as a camp counselor. The line: “You’ve always wanted your own private jet. Now you have six.”
A pun. Luke Sullivan would disapprove.
But as Grody learned over years of making things: “The rules only apply when the work isn’t that good. If you create anything that’s any good, the rules are sort of a footnote or an afterthought.”
Giant Spoon has built a reputation for stirring shit up. Clients come there knowing they’re not getting safe, boring work. When the brief is “build us into culture,” the audacity of the work has to match that request.
What matters more than any single spot is trust. If clients think you’re bullshitting them for a short-term transaction, you’ve lost something more valuable than the work. Plant your feet. Tell the truth. Don’t advocate for something that won’t help their business.
Good creative wins when it’s good and correct.
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