In its early days, Scion needed to build brand awareness, which meant the occasional foray into ESPN college football broadcasts. Now that Scion has a toehold among young hipsters, its marketers will go even further underground into music, art, fashion and film.

"We are becoming more offbeat," says Scion Vice President Mark Templin. "We want to pull people into the brand. We will never push the brand onto them. ...

"The secret is that we are involved when people aren't yet famous," Templin says. "If they even have a hint of becoming famous, then we are on to the next unknown, because there is always an unknown you can support."

Scion's backing of budding filmmakers includes sponsoring X-Dance, an unauthorized splinter of Robert Redford's famed Sundance Film Festival. Whereas Sundance focuses on art-house dramas, X-Dance movies deal with snowboarding steep glaciers or surfing the thunderous waves off Maui.

Scion is even reaching for those who can't drive yet. It is co-sponsoring an exhibit at a Los Angeles science museum with Marvel Comics. In it, young visitors can fit into the exoskeleton of superhero Iron Man and physically lift with pulleys and levers, a Scion xB hatchback off the ground. Scion is aiming even younger by collaborating with the educational Web site Whyville, whose average viewers are between 8 and 15 years of age.

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