Toyota Corp.?s Lexus is giving consumers a second screen viewing experience for its branded television series ?Verses and Flow? through a dedicated mobile application.

This app connects fans with performers on the show, allowing consumers to both enjoy content and create their own and share it with the platform?s community. This app extends the concept of the show, which gives a platform to well-known black artists across spoken word, music and more.

Creating a community
This is the fifth season of Verses and Flow, which premiered on TV One July 30. The NAACP Image Award-nominated variety show is designed to reach African American consumers in an organic way (see story).

Lexus has now extended the impact of the show with an app available for iOS and Android devices.

Within the app, consumers will be able to view exclusive content captured during the taping of this season, including interviews with artists such as Sevyn Streeter, Chrisette Michele, B.o.B. and Empire?s Jussie Smollet.

Consumers can also actively participate on the app, sharing their own Verses and Flow moment with the app?s community in the form of video, text or photo. These can also be shared outside of the app on Facebook or Twitter.

Users will be notified through the app and by email when new content is posted. Adding to a feeling of community, consumers can see who else has liked or commented on a particular piece of content, possibly striking up a conversation.

This year, Lexus is bolstering its ongoing Verses and Flow initiative with a scholarship available to African American students.

Lexus? intent to showcase inspiring figures in black communities resonates with the new scholarship, which calls for students to write about how they drive change in their communities and how they exhibit leadership.  Twenty students will receive a $5,000 scholarship, two students from each of 10 historically black colleges or universities.

By unifying artists around compelling, important issues, the automaker is able to reach a desired demographic in an organic fashion (see story).