It’s a stunt that probably wouldn’t work for the station wagon.

Toronto ad agency Lowe Roche drove a 2013 Porsche 911 Carrera S from Pfaff Porsche around an affluent North Toronto neighbourhood, parked it in front of high-end homes, snapped a photo at each, processed the picture inside a van and, minutes later, dropped off a custom-ad that made it look as though the car was pulling out of the homeowner’s driveway. The aspirational postcard advertised at-home test drives with the tag line: “It’s closer than you think.”

Lowe Roche creative director Dave Douglass said the ad showed how far the dealership is “prepared to go to make their customers happy.”

And if you’re looking closely at the photos, that is not quite as far as the sidewalk, but a bit farther than the curb — all above-board, according to the agency’s legal department, but perhaps straddling the border between brilliant and creepy, according to experts surveyed by the Star.

It is difficult to get attention in a society of savvy consumers who are bombarded with advertising, but this apparently brought results: 32 per cent of the people who retrieved the postcard from the mailbox visited the website, according to Lowe Roche. The agency wouldn’t release the specific neighbourhoods targeted, but did demographic research to select them. Nobody called to complain.

George Brown advertising professor Tom Arhontoudis called the rate “fantastic,” given the fact that banks and insurance companies “high-five themselves” when 2 per cent of people respond to their mailbox entreaties.

But with greater personalization of the advertising comes greater risk. Markus Giesler, marketing professor at York’s Schulich School of Business, says that while most people just ignore typical mailbox advertising, this personal effort might lead to negative consequences.

If you value your privacy, it might feel like an invasion — but it might be “kind of cute” and “flattering” if you like the brand, he said.

Joseph Jaffe, founder of Connecticut-based innovation agency Evol8tion, said he would be annoyed and angry if someone drove close to his home to make this ad, but acknowledged the idea was creative and original.

His two concerns were the creepiness factor, and the presumption that just because someone lives in a more expensive home they’d be interested in the car.

“To basically come and say, ‘Hey rich guy, this is what you should be buying,’ it’s like, you know what, who the hell are you to make a value judgment on what my financial position is and what my disposable income looks like?” he said.

“That’s why I was conflicted. Fifty per cent of me loves it, 50 per cent of me hates it. When all is said is done, that’s better than 100 per cent of people being completely bored and underwhelmed and apathetic … you take a risk, you’ll get a return, whether that return is a positive or negative,” he said.

Arhontoudis said he wouldn’t be freaked out by how personalized the ad is. It was smart to profile the $90,000-plus car in neighbourhoods that can afford it, he said — and it sets a new bar for advertising.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

And while he’s impressed with the number of website visitors, he’s curious about actual sales.

So far, no Porsches have made the leap from mailbox to garage, but there is an increase in traffic, according to Pfaff Auto CEO Christopher Pfaff. He says the test will come in September, when more homes are visited by the Porsche and its driver, who ducks down each time a photo is taken.