Hasta La Creative!

H&L Partners launched a campaign for Toyota Prius, promoting the hybrid vehicle’s new model as “Redesigned, CA Style.”

Based around the insight that Californians buy more Prii (according to the pitch we received, the plural of Prius — who knew?) than anyone else, the spot embraces and celebrates some common assumptions/stereotypes about residents of the state.

“California, here we come/ Right back where we started from…”

The two-minute anthem ad introduces the state as the “last stop for every weirdo and wild-eyed visionary who ever had a dream…or at least enough gas to get here” over an acoustic guitar (of course) and footage of the state’s natural beauty. Things take a turn for the even more self-congratulatory when the voiceover claims, “We like to be at the forefront, the first to grab on to the next big thing and make it ours,” championing the state as the birthplace of jeans, the smartphone and “putting avocado on everything.”

It then adds, “Maybe the environment just isn’t that big of a deal to them” about residents of other states who maybe just don’t understands the appeal of Toyota’s hybrid. It’s kind of weird that the one guy seems to be giving his car a luxurious wash though. Isn’t there still a big drought going on over there?

A trio of 30-second spots continues the theme, focusing on common stereotypes of Californians as “Hippies,” “Weirdos” and “Nerds.”

The self-satisfied approach makes sense since Californians already love the Prius. But the effort is targeted specifically at the Northern California market, where its tone is not likely to offend viewers and may stoke state pride, especially among those who are already fans of Toyota’s hybrid offering.

Credits:
Agency: H&L Partners
Creative Director: Rob Bagot
Associate Creative Director/Copywriter:
Dallas Baker
Art Director: Brian G Cheung
Executive Producer: Ted Meyer
Account Director: Trey Curtola
Account Manager: Chris Cronin
Account Coordinator: Camille Kahrimanian
Account Executive: Ongie Chin

Production Company: Caviar
Director: Hugo Stenson
DP: Jac Fitzgerald
Executive Producer: Kim Dellara
Production Contact: Jude Vermeulen

Editorial: Cartel Editorial
Editor(s): Leo Scott, Chris Catanach
Producer: Barbara Healey
Executive producer: Lauren Bleiweiss

Telecine: Electric Theatre Collective
Colorist: Aubrey Woodiwiss

Music & Sound: Barking Owl Sound
Music Producer: Ashley Benton
Final Music: Atticus Ross, Brian Canning,
Seth Olinsky
Sound Designer: Morgan Johnson
Executive Producer: Kelly Bayett

Toyota is celebrating Father’s Day with a sweet ad about a dad and his daughter’s relationship through the years—told from both perspectives.

The three-and-a-half minute montage first tells the story from the father’s point of view, starting when his girl is just a newborn. As she grows up, he graduates from a small hatchback to a minivan, and he eventually slaps a “Baby on board” sticker on her own car (for his grandkid).

The real fun, though, comes in the second half of the commercial, which follows the same story but told from the daughter’s perspective, throwing in even more cute tidbits—like the moment, as a teen, when she tosses the giant pink mittens she’s outgrown but Dad is still foisting upon her.

Father-daughter car stories are nothing new—Subaru famously excels at them. General throwbacks to growing up while riding around in a particular make are familiar, too, as are series on an automaker’s evolving models.

But Toyota’s approach here blends a number of popular themes into a powerful sequence that, save for some not-entirely-convincing aging, is well-produced. The split story is also an effective hook—once you’ve seen the father’s side, curiosity about the daughter’s take on the same events helps carry it through to the end.

Eventually, the ad does deliver its own hard sales pitch—a Toyota collision alarm system saves all three generations from rear-ending the car in front of them. The subtitled English translation of the tagline—”Love works invisible. Toyota works love”—doesn’t really do it justice. The rough spirit of the Japanese is something closer to “Love invisibly watches over you. We use the same eye in our cars.”

That’s not a bad way to tie the whole piece together, even if it’s safe to say that when all is said and done, Toyota loves your money more than it loves you.

Droga5 launched a new campaign called “Fueled by Everything,” introducing the hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai with the launch spot, “Fueled by Bullsh*t,” directed by Super Size Me’s Morgan Spurlock.

The online ad begins by reminding viewers of the ubiquity of hydrogen, “the most abundant element in the universe,” which is just about everywhere, before tackling criticism of the idea of hydrogen-powered vehicles.

“The ongoing joke is that fuel-cell vehicles are 15 years away and always will be,” Doug Coleman, national vehicle marketing manager-Prius family, electric and fuel cell vehicles at Toyota Motor sales, told AdAge. “The Mirai is not just a new model, but a whole new category, a whole new fuel source. There are a lot of misperceptions of what hydrogen is, where it comes from and does it make sense to use.”

The ad quotes skeptics as saying things such as “Fuel cells are dead on arrival,” “Hydrogen is inefficient,” It’s a pipe dream,” and even, just “Bullsh*t.” Engineer Scott Blanchett addresses that last one saying, “…they’re right, but not in the way they think.” The remainder of the ad follows the transformation of a truckload of manure into usable hydrogen fuel. Scott gets the manure from a dairy farmer and then transports it to the digester, where it is broken down and releases raw biogas. Purified gas is then taken to steam methane reformer, where the hydrogen is stripped out using steam and heat to make usable fuel. It’s a pretty clever way to denounce hydrogen critics and hype the launch of the new vehicle and despite the lengthy run time (past the three minute mark), the ad doesn’t feel too drawn out, as it provides a detailed look at the process of turning manure into fuel.

“Fueled by Bullsh*t” launched today on the Toyota Mirai website, social video sites such as YouTube and Hulu and Forbes.com. The campaign will continue rolling out through the fall, with a series of videos detailing other everyday sources for hydrogen fuel.

Everyone loves to complain about the weatherman messing up the forecast, but Toyota decided to actually do something about it.

At least, that’s the premise of this new reality-style ad for the automaker’s Aygo model (sold in Europe). In the two-minute spot, three television forecasters are given special versions of the car to drive, with a sunroof rigged to stay closed when he or she predicts rain, and open when he or she expects it to shine—regardless of what actually comes out of the skies.

Cue obvious footage of one weather anchor cursing as a small mountain of snow dumps onto her head (did she not see it, or did the rules bar her from sweeping it off before she got in?), and another hilariously pleading for mercy as he gets drenched in a downpour.

It’s all framed as an experiment, if tongue in cheek, so the results aren’t surprising— the world’s favorite rhetorical punching bags get the weather right some of the time. And as with most documentary marketing, it should probably be taken with more than one grain of salt.

In other words, Toyota isn’t exactly taking much of a risk by piling on. But it’s fun enough to watch, in a revenge-schadenfreude kind of way. For all those times you got caught in a thunderstorm without an umbrella, sit back and grab some popcorn, because it sure beats blaming the atmosphere.

Agency: Del Campo Saatchi and Saatchi Spain.

Almost eight years later, “Dick in a Box” lives on as one of Saturday Night Live’s more hilarious digital shorts. And since there are no rules that say that jokes become stale after that amount of time, some car salesmen in Oak Lawn, Ill., fired up their cameras and created a parody to the tune once made popular by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg.

Oak Lawn Toyota’s “Keys in a Box” takes SNL’s hilarious joke and removes the funny parts—inserting keys into said box. But it’s pretty well executed, considering the presumed budget. I found myself bobbing my head to the beat, and chuckling at this ironically great rendition.

CREDITS
Music by Rico Vigil and Augie Rampolla
visforvig@gmail.com
Written, filmed and directed by Joe Mallet (Internet Sales Manager)
starring Parker Gadbois, Abby Urbano, and Joe Mallet

Live long enough and you just might see an automobile that sucks up discarded plastic bottles anteater-style through its front and spits them out the back as recycled plastic bricks that can be used to build houses. That is, if a South African 10-year-old’s concept for the Toyota Dream Car Art Contest ever comes true.

In the meantime, you can check out the Vine video that the brand created to animate Sumeeth Singh’s idea below, along with the drawings and video clips for dozens of other finalists in the global competition on the microsite.

It’s the eighth such contest the automaker has hosted since 2008, and this one netted some 600,000 submissions. For more than two months, Toyota has been posting a daily Vine based on a “Dream Car of the Day.” So far it’s put out more than 70 of 90 total finalists. The brand’s packaging around each idea is especially impressive. Visual geeks may want to take a spin over to the site to check out explanations of the creative process for each Vine.

The concepts themselves range from zany and nonsensical—a banana spaceship car; a car that’s small enough to drive around DNA strands; a fish with wheels—to clever and caring and conscientious—like Singh’s, and a number of others themed around recycling, or generating water for deserts and fields and flowers, or helping people by bringing them food and books and ice cream.

Many of the ideas are animal-car hybrids. There’s even a giant bird-car that swoops in over cities and sucks out all the air pollution. Basically, you know, a Prius. 

In other words, children’s imaginations are entertaining to beaten-down grownups because kids’ minds are filled with fantastic ideas that aren’t bound by any concern about what’s actually possible. And Toyota’s is leveraging that to great effect as marketing.

It’s far from an unfamiliar dynamic. McCann Worldgroup and Wes Anderson did it exceptionally well for Sony Xperia back in 2012, and BBDO has built a strong AT&T campaign out of the endearingly ridiculous things that kids tend to blurt out. But if you have a lot of time on your hands, and get a kick out of this sort of thing, you might want to start wading through Toyota’s whole collection.

And if you work at an agency, think about sourcing all your ideas from a bunch of 10-year-olds, and then just pay your adult staff to polish them up.

See more of the Vines below. Via Co.Exist.

It was only a matter of time before the suburban stay-at-home mother of 2.5 kids decided that she wasn’t fond of the moniker “Soccer Mom.” After all, her little ones are into Lacrosse now.

Arguably, the reason for the desired change is the stereotypical choice for transportation. What do all “soccer moms” drive? Minivans.

Enter Cadillac:

This story from AdAge claims that Cadillac, Nissan, Buick, and others, are reconsidering their approach to advertising the sport utility vehicle market.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Como já esperado depois do teaser, a Toyota reúne Terry Crews e os Muppets em seu comercial para o Super Bowl.

Dirigindo seu modelo Highlander pela estrada, ele encontra as criaturas em um veículo abandonado, e vai precisar aguentar o resto do dia enquanto cantam a música “No Room for Boring”.

Criado pela Saatchi & Saatchi de Los Angeles, a veiculação é uma parceria com a Disney, que vai estrear em março o filme “Muppets Most Wanted” (“Muppets 2: Procurados e Amados”, no Brasil).

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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After watching Terry Crews scream his way through many an Old Spice ad, it's hard to imagine him as boring. But that's the premise of Toyota's upcoming Super Bowl ad for the Highlander, in which Crews receives life lessons from none other than the Muppets.

Created by Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles and hashtagged #NoRoomForBoring, the 60-second spot, titled "Joyride," features an original song about "unborifying" your life. The Muppets partnership is a dual promotion, highlighting both the 2014 Highlander and Disney's upcoming film Muppets Most Wanted.

Here's the teaser clip, which sets the scene for the Super Bowl spot:

O briefing era simples: a Toyota queria mostrar aos consumidores que os veículos usados comercializados pela Automark, concessionária parceira da montadora na África do Sul, eram tão confiáveis quanto um carro saído da fábrica. Em vez de usar o tempo falando do alto padrão de qualidade, certificados e afins, a Draftfcb, de Johannesburgo resolveu tudo de uma maneira simples, usando como metáfora o amor paterno.

O resultado foi um comercial simples e divertido, que traduz super bem a ideia ao mostrar que os veículos usados da Automark foram tão bem cuidados por seus antigos donos quanto um pai cuida de seu filho. Sem contar que o bebê é um show à parte.

Pena que a qualidade do vídeo – disponível no canal oficial da Toyota – está péssima… 🙁

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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