Campaign

The Camry Effect

See the full experience 
the rundown

The launch of the 2012 Camry needed to be a big one. Apart from a huge sales target, Toyota wanted to change the conversation from tsunami and recalls back to road trips and reliability. Problem was, Camry owners weren’t talking online. And shoppers wouldn’t consider buying Camry until they’d read one or two reviews. If we could get a fraction of the 6.8 million Camry owners to tell their story online, we’d have a Yelp-like site people could use when shopping for cars. It was a dynamic opportunity to utilize digital and social in a way that excited conversation and redefined the consumer role.

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The Building Blocks

We built an ever-evolving social network in six weeks, with dynamic choose-your-own-adventure question logic, real-time stats based on user interaction, a custom moderated back-end for saving user-generated stories, and the ability to create a customized animated 3-D flash collage that could be shared anytime, then built it all to work on desktop, Android and iOS (iPad & iPhone). To ensure interaction, we partnered with Shazam to launch with an interactive Super Bowl spot: when viewers Shazamed our spot, they were entered to win two Camrys, then they were driven into our experience to create their story.
  •   Mobile
    Shazaam
  •   Social
    Facebook
    Twitter
  •   Video
    YouTube
  •   Web/Apps
    3-D Flash

The Votes

The Details

Agency
Brand
Toyota
Targeted Regions
  • North America
Marketing Objective
Launch Date
Aug. 17, 2011

The Team

  • Saatchi & Saatchi LA www.saatchila.com/
  • Chris Adams and Margaret Keene, Executive Creative Directors
  • Andre Le Masurier and John Payne, Creative Directors
  • Matthew Curry, ACD Copywriter
  • Brad Burke , ACD Art Director
  • Ricardo Yosy and Erek Vinluan, Art Directors
  • Jeff Nieberding, Copywriter
  • Chelsea Dubois, Copywriter
  • Alex Solarte, Copywriter
  • Jonathan Pelleg, Copywriter
  • Matthew Poitras, Copywriter
  • Jeremy Little, Production Artist
  • Tanya Lesieur, Director of Integrated Production
  • Tina Gongsakdi, Executive Integrated Producer
  • Lauren Brattain, Senior Integrated Producer
  • Morgan Keller, Interactive Producer
  • Charlie Maas, Broadcast Producer
  • Christopher Kief, Creative Technology Director
  • Shaun Rance, Director User Experience
  • Emily Smith, User Experience Designer
  • Norma Carballo, Project Manager
  • Drew Corpman, Account Director
  • Kristen Hoy, Account Supervisor
  • Nick Frontiera and Jenna Reiss, Account Executives
  • Evan Ferrari, Planning
  • Kristen Reut, Business Affairs Manager
  • Tomos Evans, Social Engagement Director
  • Qube Konstrukt www.qubekonstrukt.com/
  • Iron Claw www.ironclaw.la
  • Resn www.resn.co.nz
  • Lime Studios www.limestudios.tv
  • Toyota
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The Stats

  • 800 percent spike in real-world Camry interest
  • 19% more sales leads than pre-campaign
  • 460M project impressions

The Results

The results were inspiring: Over 460 million unpaid media impressions. A jump from 20,000 stories to 80,000 in under four days. 710,000 visitors spending an average of four minutes on the site. An 800% spike in real-world Camry interest. And 19% more Camry sales leads than pre-campaign. Toyota declared it their best sales quarter in nearly five years and publications pronounced Toyota “Back On Track”. We got nearly 100,000 people talking about a car no one talked about. And we created a platform people could use for research. In short, we pulled off something few other car brands could.

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