Comments on: Why The Population deserves to win the Toyota Yaris social media pitch

By: Bcadgroup’s Weblog » Blog Archive » Social Media Savvy – A Reason to Hire a Partner With Hands On Experience

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:38:26 +0000

[...] The Brand Shop’s Peter Bray wrote a guest posting for us on the contest, he placed the campaign in fifth place. He asked: “Perhaps the account management and build was [...]

By: How Saatchi & Saatchi’s Toyota social media disaster unfolded - mUmBRELLA

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:24:43 +0000

[...] This has been a great exercise for our industry in general. It has caused us to not only examine the traditional pitch process, but also to call into question exactly what social media is, how agencies deal with budgets, pitch tricks and whether or not advertising can co-exist peacefully with social media. Read more » [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:21:27 +0000

Larry, brand work most certainly does sell cars. Far from not being trackable
, there are some decent research companies that can track results from this sort of campaign. Ben

By: Peter Bray

Peter Bray — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:24:41 +0000

Hi all

Some have asked me privately why I have been possibly too nice in my review of the work.

I don’t think that I have been at all. As an agency that was on the original list of 13 or so, I know how hard it was to get in the top 5, and no I have no affiliations with anyone at the final five. As I mentioned, being held up for public scrutiny isn’t easy, and for that all the agencies should get a pat on the back.

As I made very clear, it is an incredibly subjective area, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Toyota disagreed with my opinion in all counts, and they would be equally “right” as me.

I’m looking forward to seeing the next phase of the pitch.

Cheers,
Peter

By: Larry

Larry — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:37:03 +0000

leanne … branding is the facade people hide behind when they can’t attribute anything tangible to their ‘marketing’ efforts.

yes, am aware that it’s highly unlikely that someone will go out and buy a yaris tomorrow as a result but will these efforts contribute to influencing the decision of someone who might be looking for a car in 12-18 months and didn’t have Yaris on their consideration list?

i guess it doesn’t matter as there’s no way of tracking it … but luckily we can measure the important stuff like retweets and facebook friends.

By: Leanne

Leanne — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:08:32 +0000

Will it sell cars??

Ultimately Marketing it about increasing sales, however one of the most important parts about Marketing is Branding. So, while most people touched by these social media experiments will not automatically go out and purchase a Toyota Yaris, the name is out there in some way, shape or form. So, when a young 20 something year old wants to purchase a car then hopefully Toyota Yaris is somewhere on the list.

By: threebillion

threebillion — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:54:09 +0000

I’m gonna put it out there…

The Iris Bootboxing campaign is the only one which I considered good/interesting/entertaining enough to be shared with my friends. It therefore wins my ’social’ award.

Whether I or any of my friends will now buy a Yaris in the next 12 months is still undecided.

By: version

version — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:31:26 +0000

Is it against the “rules” of social media to use off-line media to support a social media idea? Not sure.

I thought the Wolfy idea was memorable and added some street cred to the Yaris brand, but this benefit could have been much greater if it was supported with some targeted off line media like street press/street posters etc.to rapidly extend the campaign’s reach and fuel conversations amongst people outside of the industry.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:18:13 +0000

At this rate there won’t be an agency called The Population for much longer, the two co-founders have both recently left for jobs at other agencies!

By: Batty Face

Batty Face — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:41:26 +0000

The biggest take out from all of this is that there are a few marketers out there prepared to shake things up and try new stuff – about freakin time! And good on Toyota’s digital bod for doing just that.

By: Tobe

Tobe — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:41:04 +0000

If the brief was to create social media buzz, Populations was the closest. If the brief was to create a great stunt using social media channels to support it, OGB wins it for me.
The best thing of all… they all got paid for doing the pitch.
That’s what this industry should be demanding. We give too much away for free.

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:59:23 +0000

not sure an essay was required here

hothouse – got youtube ‘internet famous’ guy who appears to be well removed from the target audience of the vehicle to give away a car to the best comment. will it sell cars?

iris – got local hip hop guy and guest cast to do an inane video slamming doors and using the indicator and horn to make the sort of music that makes you angry. if toyota are giving out $15k for similar efforts I would like some cash to subsidise the recording and video of me farting the instrumental of pharoah monch’s ’simon sez’. will it sell cars?

saatchi – have to respect their lack of effort. outstanding. will it sell cars?

one green bean – cute idea aimed at targeting the trade press and not consumers. either brilliant or completely misses the mark. will it sell cars?

population – hard to tell. in isolation seems tokenistic but as part of a wider ‘relationship’ idea you never know. will it sell cars?

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:28:52 +0000

Hmm – I completely disagree. The Populations campaign was actually fairly ordinary. It is a tenous link between which city is the greatest and the actual car itself.

The Sydney vs Melbourne thing basically meant that all memebrs at the Pop could recruit all their friends and therefore make up the majority of the 6,000 or so people

The one thing I know abotu the Yaris c ause I have one is that it looks cool and edgy. The Hip hop video actually used the car and tapped into a young cool genre, therefore a much better fit for the Yaris brand.

By: mumbrella

mumbrella — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:46:05 +0000

(A few declarations of interest: Hothouse’s Scott Rhodie co-presents the Mumbrella Podcast, and I’ve taken a ride in Wolfy’s car)

The beauty of our guest postings is that they generate interesting opinion pieces which I don’t necessarily agree with. This is one of those occasions.

For what it’s worth, I think scoring Hothouse poorly for getting a video blogger (Blunty) to do some of the heavy lifting is a bit of an underestimate of the potential role of PR in social media. For me, good PR is partly about building relationships with people like Blunty so they will do that sort of thing for you and your brand if there’s something in it for them (original content). On the other point, as Toyota had to approve the campaign, clearly they must have provided the car at cost rather than list price.

Iris lost my vote from the moment that somebody (I’ve no evidence it was someone from the agency but they also made no effort to stop it) got caught astroturfing this site with a string of positive comments about Bootboxing from the same IP address. That’s not good stuff for a brand to get caught up in.

Cheers,

Tim Burrowes – Mumbrella