Why Mazda Is Making Movies Now (Exclusive)

Mazda created movie posters for fake titles in its new ad campaign. Courtesy of Mazda (5)

Can movies move Mazdas? The automaker is betting that they can.

The car company is launching a new version of its CX-5 SUV, and used this year’s Academy Awards to launch a film-themed campaign that it plans to bring to video platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Hulu, with CMO Brad Audet telling The Hollywood Reporter that it is thinking about bringing it to movie theaters as well.

The premise? “5 Sides of the CX-5,” with director Paul Hunter developing five short films (as well as shorter trailer versions) based on five classic film genres: Romance, action, sci-fi, musical and horror. Jessamie Waldon-Day stars in each film (alongside a CX-5, of course).

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It’s an intriguing campaign that leverages the reach of broadcast during one of its marquee events (the Oscars), the breadth and depth of digital distribution, and the familiarity and emotional resonance of film.

“The CX-5 competes in a highly competitive category where virtually every couple of months there’s an all new something,” Audet says. “So we couldn’t just come out with another standard automotive spot, we really needed to do something that that broke through.”

Audet says that the target demographic for the CX-5 is female and multi-dimensional, which led to the “aha moment” where his team honed in the film genres as an anchor point for the campaign. The timing of the launch, with coincided with the Oscars and allowed for members of the Film Academy’s Academy Gold mentorship program to help with production, was a coincidence.

But with any marketing effort, particularly one that leans on creating original programming that can stand on its own, is complex and risky. The brand and product need to be featured prominently (the CX-5 campaign includes a different feature of the car in each film), and Audet notes his own initial hesitation with the horror genre.

“I think first and foremost, we had to land the entertainment value, and then obviously the car and the car’s features had to be prominent within each one of those stories,” Audet says. “I think it was a bit of an iterative process.”

Credit, he says, goes to Hunter, who crafted both the films and their trailer counterparts.

“I think most importantly, he saw the potential of the idea and really brought the the idea to life in the five stories, and did a really spectacular job,” Audet says. “He understood the role of the car in the storytelling, as the heroines’ companion in this and the enabler.”

“You have to really commit to the story,” Hunter says. “What’s important is that everything felt lived in, and it was important that everything felt true and honest to to each moment, so that every sort of turning point or every scene had to force you forward into a new scene.”

“No matter what the the the stories were, the genres, we never wanted it to feel like we were asking more or pushing too hard,” he adds. “The stories are built around Mazda, but we didn’t want it to feel like it was necessarily pushing like in a traditional commercial.”

Mazda has released the action and romance films already, with the horror and musical films viewable for the first time below.

So what does an automaker do, now that it has five short films representing five of the movie business’ key genres? Well, it goes to the movies. Audet says that the automaker is thinking of supporting what appears to be a strong 2026 film slate, and placing its films in the previews, likely in front of titles that share similar genres or themes.

“Certainly there’s a lot of lot of eyeballs on film over the summer, and looks like this will be a good summer movie season,” he says. “So I think that’ll be one of our key initiatives.”

You can watch the “5 Sides of CX-5” films, below.