Ad of the Day: Toyota

There's nothing manly men love more than enormous, stuff-hauling pickup trucks, if advertisements are any indication. In its latest spot for Toyota, Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney pokes a bit of fun at the man-truck relationship with a heartbreaking tale of love, loss, and despair. Tragedy strikes early in this story when a Toyota HiLux pickup truck, while being loaded full of lumber by its rugged owner, rolls down a hill and over a cliff to a watery demise. For the man, it's not just the loss of a car—it's an existential crisis-inducing loss of a beloved companion. Cue the melodramatic misery montage, set to Player's 1977 classic "Baby Come Back." (Its opening line about a "mask of false bravado" speaks particularly well to the truck-ad genre.) The man can barely function, so tormented is he by flashbacks to happier times chopping wood, pulling down large structures, and doing other stereotypical pickup-truck-ad activities with his four-wheeled "baby." Finally, standing alone in the pouring rain, he breaks. But his Toyota won't let him down that easily. As the man strolls past the site of the accident, a shell of his former self, he discovers his true love waiting for him on the beach—and apart from a little water under the seats, she's in surprisingly good shape for having fallen off a cliff into saltwater. (I think it's safe to assume Toyota isn't trying to convince people that its trucks can survive a 1,000-foot fall unscathed, though one YouTube commenter predicts, "Unfortunately, it'll get pulled as it'll be deemed 'misleading.'") With truck commercials rarely straying from the usual gruff narration about horsepower, even if Toyota's spot doesn't technically explain what makes the HiLux so special (apart from its cliff-diving capabilities), it's nice to see a pickup spot that doesn't take itself too seriously. And let's face it, it's probably the only one you'll remember for more than five minutes. [jwplayer nuE5vJeN-1kT9Z8rj] CREDITS: Client: Toyota Australia Divisional Manager, Marketing: Scott Thompson Corporate Manager, Marketing: Adrian Weimers Manager, Advertising: Noni Rosengren Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney, Australia Creative Director: Steve Carlin Copywriter/Art Director: Jon Burden Art Director: Simon Cox Group Business Director: Ben Court Senior Business Director: Amy Turnbull TV Producer: Llew Griffiths Executive Director: Steve Anastasiadis Production Company: Robbers Dog Director: Adam Stevens Production Co Producer: Mark Foster Media Agency: The Media Store

Brand Marketing

Ad of the Day: Toyota

A man and his truck—and their epic tale of love, loss, and redemption

Emma Bazilian

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Emma Bazilian