• by Tom Siebert , Op-Ed Contributor, December 29, 2006

Toyota

This Automaker's going for one Helluva Ride

Though she recognizes that it's already become a cliché, Kim McCullough knows exactly why Toyota's 2006 marketing performance won the auto company Media magazine's Client of the Year honors.

"Engagement," says Toyota's corporate manager of marketing communications. "If we were going to have a theme word for our year, that would be it."

The marketer's ad campaigns, spearheaded for both mediastrategy and creative by the automaker's agency of less than two years, Saatchi & Saatchi (media buying is handled by Zenith), leveraged TV, print, online, experiential, word-of-mouth, and other forms of media to bring Toyota's diverse brands into the daily lives and conversations of consumers.

For the launch of Yaris, its subcompact sedan, Toyota and Saatchi laid the groundwork well before the vehicle was available for purchase. The campaign tapped into research that identified the car buyers Toyota was trying to reach as "top drivers," McCullough says. The company defined top drivers as consumers interested in getting deep into pop culture, using texting, microsites, and other media to learn all they can.

Two shows identified as top driver friendly are Fox TV's "Prison Break" and "24," both of which Yaris sponsored. But that was only the beginning. "Fox came to us when they were developing 'mobisodes,'" short dramatic vignettes for mobile phones "which was perfect for us," McCullough says. "It allowed us a starting place to jump off besides the commercials, and was a natural progression for us to promote activity on the Toyota Web site and customize our creative."

The Fox relationship deepened once its News Corp. owner acquired MySpace, where Toyota screened TV episodes and mobisodes and created a fan blog, giving users a deeper experience with the program, says John Lisko, Saatchi & Saatchi's strategic communications director.

Saatchi and Toyota also struck a product integration deal with Fox's "Madtv" in which cast members interacted with the Yaris before it was available on dealer lots. The episode prior to the Oscars, for example, featured the car in all five skits parodying the films nominated for Best Picture.

Lisko says some of the car's highest recall numbers come through product integration deals, but cautions that it's a thin line between effective placement and overselling. McCullough agrees. "Overdoing it on product placement is a little bit like pornography," McCullough says. "You know it when you see it. We're very conscious that you have to respect the audience; if they see [product placement] and know it's sponsored by Toyota, there can be a backlash. If we do product integration, we back off the sponsorship."

At the South by Southwest music festival, Yaris sponsored free WiFi centers, and Yaris taxicabs shuttled attendees around the sprawling festival. Yaris also gave out free iced coffees and special DVDs that enabled fans to create their own compilations, which could be downloaded from a Yaris/sxsw site.

For Toyota's FJ Cruiser sports utility vehicle, there was no TV advertising. Toyota needed to gain traction with the vehicle's target: off-road enthusiasts. The SUV was taken to areas where people could see the vehicle in action. "Our proprietary research showed that one of the worst things you can be in this off-roading community is a poseur," Lisko says. "So we put the vehicle right there in front of them to show them it was for real."

The second leg of the campaign spoke directly to buyers in off-road enthusiasts' magazines such as Four Wheeler. Instead of a conventional print ad, Saatchi created an in-depth promotional insert. "People who make this kind of purchase want the inside story, they want to know the product inside and out," McCullough says. "We gave them something they could take with them as they were doing their research."

For its Takoma pickup truck, Toyota went to the heartland. Toyota associated it with NBC's new drama "Friday Night Lights." For two months, Toyota sponsored a "'Friday Night Lights' Hometown Sweepstakes" contest for students ages 14 to 18. The grand prize was $50,000 to the winning student's high school athletic program and an appearance with five friends on the show.

Toyota sponsored elements of the show's Web site, where students could download free passes to screenings of the program's pilot episode in movie theaters. Once the program began, Toyota packaged a deal that also gave NBC a cross-promotion between its new "Sunday Night Football" program and the rookie gridiron series.

A weekly video feature, called "Jon & J.J.: The Line of Scrimmage," hosted by two college students and high school football fanatics, toured the U.S. seeking out the biggest game and wildest plays of the week. They shot the videos from the tailgate of a Toyota Tundra.

"We wanted to try and experiment in a more engaging way," McCullough says. "There's a lot of local PR in each of the communities when we arrive, and since grassroots is so important to us, just the PR alone has made it worthwhile."