Toyota withdraws award for ‘sexist’ Yaris ad and launches internal review
Toyota has deselected the controversial “Clean Getaways” video as the winner of its Yaris film making competition but has failed to say whether or not it will honour the $7,000 prize that was due to be awarded to the winning entrant.
The Clean Getways video was part of the Saatchi & Saatchi-organised Clever Film Competition, which was the ad agency’s entry into Toyota’s live social media pitch. It is one of five social media campaigns being run for the Toyota Yaris.
But following a public backlash against the Clean Getaways ad which features a girl’s father and boyfriend having an innuendo-laden discussion about taking her virginity, Toyota pulled the video down from public view and today told Mumbrella that it has now taken it out of the competition. Originally a jury consisting of Saatchi & Saatchi and Toyota staff had declared it the winner.
Toyota spokesman Mike Breen said whether or not it will pick another winner from the Clever Film Competition is “under discussion”, with a decision to be made “over the next few days”.
It isn’t really sexist, it’s just plain vile. She’s depicted as being a sexually-empowered young woman and depicting a woman actually being OK with sex and embracing it with gusto really shouldn’t be seen as degrading to women.
The only positive thing about this video is that the young girl is portrayed as having a keen interest in participating. That’s liberating for women, not sexist against them.
The rest of the ad however, is utterly repugnant and degrading to MEN actually, as it portrays them in a much more negative light than it does the young girl.
I think a little too much is being made of this though – and the complaints themselves are sexist. If this ad causes such an enormous backlash, then I for one would like to see a dramatic reduction in ads featuring women perving at shirtless men, or featuring the term ‘cougar’.
If objectification is wrong, it’s wrong for everyone, not just wrong for men.
Stop making so much sense Milorad, this is a place for people to come to vent their sheer rage at this dispicable act by writing angry letters to nobody.
My mistake 😉
This is to all the kiddies who’ve tried in vain to defend THAT video.
This fiasco is symbolic of a generation who’ve never learnt, or understood that actions have consequences and that the public domain is not a place where you can say and do anything you want, when you want.
I hope some people lose their jobs over this simply to put a stop, however temporary, to all those GenY’s who continue to think otherwise.
Toyota had a lovely sound bite on Sunday saying it was taken down as soon as there was a complaint.
Within hours of the offending link being taken down, the “ad” was again available for more people to be outraged, just in case they had missed it.
If you mean it, Toyota, delete it.
Exactly toyota, you control the internets. Delete it!
@In conclusion:
Surely almost everyone involved at any kind of senior level in the production of the video would likely not have been Gen-Y?
Lets put this in context … Jan 1st … Yaris “Clean Getaways” forgotten and the next ‘disaster’ campaign has been revealed that we are all following / commenting on.
What this does show is the true power of Social Media … we just need to harness it in a way that doesn’t do damage to the brands we are working with.
If the winner of the pitch was marked on viral wom / exposure. Saatchi WIN. Sorry for all those who are offended though its the truth.
Good point Hamish, and if the winner of the pitch was based on completely fucking up they would also win.
I say we are becoming too civilised.
I bet the people who are so negative about this are not getting any. And I dont mean to be spitful. I am just curious about this statistic.
Anyhow, the ad fails in my opinion anyway… I fail to remember anything about the car…far less that it was safe…which was supposed to be the point…. Sell the cars safety point…. the idea was cool i must admit… but it was not intune with the times… the word acceptability score was very low..too many distractign words. a bit more tweaking and a bit more focus on the car…would have achieved a great job.
this ad was like walking in to the porn shop and asking for sex.
what you really want is to supermarket…smile….and walk out with a date …smile some more…
@Hamish
I think most of the communications planning world has moved on from volume of impressions / exposure / TARPs etc being how a campaign’s success is judged. All those measures only help you understand how many eyeballs saw your message and the real estate value of the exposure.
Far more important is how the communications impacted on the business objectives, whatever they might be. I’m fairly certain Toyota wasn’t hoping for this kind of exposure when they launched their Social Media pitch comp.
Hmmm, I was born in 1981. Does this make me a Gen Y? If so, I think that I need to step up to all the haters out there, who continue to bang on the anti-Gen Y tin cup. Cast not the first stone peeps…
What astounds me is that Saatchi’s managed to come up with the absolute weakest idea out of the 5 and then they got and mess it up! Double fail if you ask me and something tells me they won’t be working with Toyota next year.
Poor Mike Breen, Oh what a feeling!
Not a lot of target market consideration (I’m guessing young fairly well-off women?) – a hard sell to say the least getting men thinking a Yaris is “cool” apart from the male miniature dog owning demographic.
Who believes Toyota had no say in the selection process? Could it boil down to a lack of quality entrants? The criteria might have been to get as closest to a TVC as possible with some spice added for the “could go viral” rubber stamp. Pity the spice seemed to offend the target market!
Perhaps Toyota could do a Tiger apology:
“We have let our target market down and we regret those transgressions with all of our hearts. We have not been true to our values and the behavior our target market deserves. We are not without faults and we are far short of perfect. We are dealing with our behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with our target market. Those feelings should be shared by us alone…”
Hmmm didn’t seem to work for Tiger though!
Hey S&S I think it’s great and I’m not even Gen Y. It’s funny (aparently I’m one of the rare people who have a sense of humour); it’s definitely viral (I’ve sent it to at least 30 friends who I think can take a joke) and yup it sure has talkability. Glad Toyota had the balls to actually run with something that wasn’t just BLAH.
Another day and still we’re talking about Yaris
i didn’t approve of the AD and question Ive been asking is what were the quality of entrants like?Perhaps there was little to choose from?
In any respect Toyota has worked it well and the power of social media has ensured that they have received more brand recognition for Yaris than they probably would have otherwise.
AHA – perhaps that was their plan ? 😉
Yeah like Toyota, Tiger’s got balls too (and there’s a few who could verify this). You could even say he wen’t viral and if he’s a brand he just managed most recognition he’s ever had (as eye balls).
But what effect does it have on the brand? Is it good / bad for sales? Who knows?
Has anyone bought a domain name recently from Godaddy.com ?
Sexist definitely. Wrong probably. Does it work? They’re not #1 for any other reason.
Maybe the ad agency in question can get some work with them and get featured on the superbowl. Recent work ‘too hot for tv’ :
http://www.godaddy.com/Shared/.....d=speeding
Whether it works for Toyota or not is another question.