Did anyone even notice the car?
The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games came to an end on the weekend and alongside insane efforts by both Australian Teams, not to mention the team on ground in Japan responsible for actually making these Games happen, there was a great lesson on display in BUSINESS vs BRAND.
Unlike previous Olympic years, this global event faced controversy on a mass scale and the success and viability commercially has been questioned due to many reasons, including the worsening pandemic and overall public sentiment from the host nation of Japan.
Locally though, for those that watched the telecasts, you might have seen that Toyota, as one of the major global sponsors went ahead with sponsorship activity (at least some of it) in the Australian market.
In my team working in media, I pitched for, won, lost and worked on many Toyota campaigns. It was about 5 years ago (or maybe 6) I sat in one of the (many, many, many) meetings with the team responsible for managing Toyota's media and partnerships discussing their 'upcoming' sponsorship of Tokyo 2020. Toyota's HQ is Japan, so a ‘hometown’ Olympics was as BIG of a deal as it gets. HUGE.
Although it seemed like ages away, the team were very clear on their brand messaging already - it was interestingly centered around....MOBILITY. They were to be the GLOBAL MOBILITY PARTNER. Fitting for a car manufacturer, but not in the standard - ferrying athletes here and there - way that you would think.
In the years to follow, it’s been continually evident the part that sport - of all types, for all people - plays in the overall strategy for Toyota globally and I’d been wondering how everything we spoke about in those meetings all those years ago would play out when Tokyo 2020/2021 finally went ahead. After all, A LOT has happened in the last 5 years and let’s not forget the reason for the rescheduling in the first place. How would Toyota bring MOBILITY to life in Tokyo when so many people in the world felt isolated, locked down and anything but…mobile. And who the heck cared about a new car right now when people are missing the basics and just want to hug their families?
Well, check out one of their TVC’s below, airing nationally, featuring the incredible Ryley Batt for the Aussie Steelers, our National Wheelchair Rugby team. It’s excellent.
As a business, Toyota sells cars and they could’ve just talked about how great the latest model of say, the Hilux was - fast, agile, loves adventure, just like an Aussie athlete! and then call it a day. But they didn’t do that.
Here, when communicating like a purposeful BRAND, emotion wins and this is brand storytelling at it's finest. The MOBILITY messaging couldn't be clearer and this TVC leaves you knowing what Toyota care about – helping human beings with mobility, in whatever way that looks like. It leaves you knowing how they are 'serving' their community and also googling Ryley Batt to find out more about this incredible athlete (that is, if you haven’t heard of him already.)
So, did anyone even notice the cars in the background? Probably not. (Although that was some great creative direction using the headlights…)
We always say at The Brand Dance “a Business sells stuff and a BRAND creates an emotional connection.”
And this was a Gold medal effort all 'round. What do you think?
Check out the TVC below created by Good Oil Films and @saatchiaus or here
DIRECTOR: ADAM GUNSER
PRODUCTION COMPANY: GOODOIL
AGENCY: SAATCHI & SAATCHI AUSTRALIA
Blog thumbnail image credit @ausparalympic Instagram