The new Toyota advertising campaign is pretty terrible.

[nenena]

Adorable space aliens learn about human love and eco-friendliness!

Probably a difficult concept to pull off without being barf-worthy in the first place, but it could have, in theory, at least been somewhat cute and whimsical. Instead, however, we're getting this:

Okay, flist, honest question time: Has Toyota ever had a clever or interesting advertising campaign? Ever?

I'm asking this question because in all honesty I absolutely cannot recall a single Toyota commercial that has ever struck me as entertaining, amusing, interesting, or even non-annoying save for this one. But maybe I'm just overlooking something.

(I have a lot of feelings about commercials, apparently.)

Comments

[darjeeling]

Is this an anime they're borrowing from, or was all that done for the commercial only?

Because it's a terrible car commercial but I'd watch an anime that cute.

[nenena]

That was done for the commercial only.

[darjeeling]

If they'd only put that much effort into their cars, they'd be a lot better off!

[nenena]

Hey now, I'm a lifelong Toyota driver. Their cars are fantastic. :)

It's their commercials which tend to run the range from boring to directly grating on my nerves (see: every Prius commercial since 2008).

[kamdensl.livejournal.com]

Wow, that commercial is really bad. Of course, I don't know the target market for Toyota cars in Japan very well or if consumers in that specific market respond better emotional appeals or rational appeals, but I feel as if this commercial is not targeted properly at all for car buyers, cheesiness aside. Putting aside the fact that the commercial hardly shows the PRODUCT in the first place, the cutesy, colorful, playful, superficial animation doesn't seem like it would feel relevant to adults. Not that cutesy animation isn't enjoyed by adults, but there's a major difference between entertaining a viewer and convincing someone to buy an expensive product.

I think this commercial suffers from similar problems as did the famous Nissan 300ZX commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI2L82eUoJU Well, there's one major difference; this commercial is well made and was critically acclaimed to be one of the best car commercials of the 90's. Yet it failed to deliver a significant number of sales for Nissan, and it's mostly due to the fact that they didn't show the actual car and that they used toys to sell a product for adults. Even if adults found the commercial amusing, the toys made it feel less relevant to them.

Additionally, I don't know what type of appeal they are trying to use. No, scratch that, I think it's that they have three or more different appeals but don't focus enough on one more than the others, which just muddies their message further. Do they want me to think about the car as a "green" car? Do they want me to connect to the "slice-of-life" of these characters and relate the product to my own life? Do they want me to get swept up in the whimsy and emotions of the commercial and then conclude that the car would provide an enjoyable driving experience? It doesn't help that the latter two appeals kind of counteract each other, further dampening their message. Which still escapes me. They don't spend enough time or energy on truly developing either of those messages well enough for me to associate the car with that message. It also kinda makes me think of how Tommy Wisseau says that his famously bad film "The Room" addresses tough issues like cancer or drugs but acutally just has one or two scenes in which characters mention these problems and then they don't show up again or get resolved.

So, yeah, I have a lot of feels for commercials too, you're not alone. Then again, I wouldn't be studying Marketing if I didn't find this sort of thing fascinating. Ironically, I'm supposed to be finishing my paper on pricing strategy in light of new trends this year, but I'm procrastinating on that to instead discuss a Japanese ad campaign. Welp.

[nenena]

I think it's that they have three or more different appeals but don't focus enough on one more than the others, which just muddies their message further.

I think that's exactly it. The cutesy animation and "slice of life" stuff isn't going to appeal to many Japanese adults outside of the otaku crowd, yet the girl character in the commercial is such a Manic Pixie Dream Girl that I suspect Toyota is trying to appeal to an adult audience larger than just the otaku crowd (or else she would have been more of a moe-blob, I think). And I know that the commercial is intended to hit that combination of "we're eco-friendly!" plus "look at us, we're so whimsical and unique!" that the American Prius commercials are aiming for (and in my opinion doing an equally spectacular job of failing at), but I don't think it quite manages to hit either note entirely on-pitch. And on top of everything else, if I didn't already know that this was a Toyota commercial, I would have no idea what the heck it's supposed to be advertising.

[(Anonymous)]

To be honest, this could've been a good movie but it is a crappy car commercial.

[nenena]

Apparently there IS going to be more of this animation, so it's supposed to functioning as kind of a teaser of what's to come in terms of a longer animation, but it's still a crappy car commercial.

To be honest, this could've been a good movie

I disagree. If this were a trailer for an actual movie it would still look like a terrible movie to me. And it is a trailer for a longer animation something (a series of TV shorts? an OAV? more commercials?) but I really don't want to see any more of whatever it's promising.

[chiikaboom.livejournal.com]

I legit just played that video without reading anything else on your journal entry (i tend to do that a lot when people post streaming vids) and at first I was like "ok well that was doinky" and then I actually read your entry and was like "OMG THATS A CAR COMMERCIAL???"

[smurasaki]

What did I just watch?

I'd blame it on my not understanding Japanese, but there really wasn't much dialogue to clarify things. Bzuh?

[corinn]

I swear I was going to reply with "What did I just watch?" even before I saw the comment above mine. LOLWUT.

I can't say anything about Toyota ever having entertaining commercials because car makes/models blur in my mind so badly that I cannot visually identify most cars that aren't very distinct (VW Beetles, XTerras, Jeeps, Hummers), so a lot of car advertising is lost on me because I can't match the advert to the product.

All I know is the car commercial that has found its way into meme in my household is the one mentioning "the long road to maturity." It was very simple. Google says it was by Chevy in 2002. Okay? /can't visually ID Chevys

I guess it WAS amusing if we're still imitating it and mocking each other with references to it a decade later.