• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 5, 2007

To push its new off-road FJ Cruiser, Toyota has enlisted the help of Saatchi & Saatchi LA and mobile services firm The Hyperfactory for a cross-channel marketing blitz.

The campaign blends text, banner, mobile TV and video advertising, while making use of Hyperfactory's recently launched Mobile Media Network--an integrated 3G branded mobile platform.

Users will be driven to branded video--documenting the FJ Cruiser racing team competing in the Baja 1000--with banner ad takeovers of the Sprint Wireless Web Sports home page and ESPN Mobile immediately following Super Bowl Sunday, as well as an exclusive two-month takeover of Go2's sports mobile channel, Go2WinterSports.

The campaign will also use MobiTV's new offering--which launched last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas--allowing viewers to click on branded "Two Roads to Baja" clips. The mobile media program will use MobiTV to display branded content as advertising, including videos, screen savers, driver-blogs, stories and images from the race.

Short-form video clips and clickable mobile TV ad-units will run throughout MobiTV, while another exclusive takeover on Versaly's video-on-demand channel, Fast Lane, will attempt to drive users to the Toyota FJ Cruiser mobile microsite. (The Fast Lane channel is available for free on Channel 61 to all Sprint Power Vision Subscribers.)

The campaign marks Toyota's early efforts to "market to our customers using the power of mobile communications," according to Kim McCullough, corporate manager, marketing for Toyota FJ.

Saatchi and Saatchi also created a YouTube page for the campaign. As of Friday, a short "Two Roads to Baja" video illustrating the FJ Cruiser in off-road action had been viewed over 600,000 times since being posted on Jan. 23.

Said John Lisko, communications director of Saatchi & Saatchi, of his relationship with Hyperfactory: "We worked closely together to ensure there were hours of extra snack-sized footage and material from the program to leverage across the mobile arena."

Others clients who have tapped The Hyperfactory for mobile marketing include Coke, Motorola, and Vodafone.

The Hyperfactory in partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi LA created a fully integrated, branded mobile campaign for the Toyota FJ Cruiser and the mobile launch of its "Two Roads to Baja" branded entertainment show.

Backed by cross-carrier mobile media support, the program encourages users to click through and engage with branded content. Like the TV show, the mobile program attempts to connect with viewers.