Toyota Corolla: Corolla Style

To reach Millennials and drive awareness of the all-new Corolla, Toyota used mobile to communicate and show them firsthand the new features of the car. The campaign was led by mobile and integrated unique experiences in the places where the target spent most of their time — online, on the phone, and on their social networks.

When it launched the all-new Corolla, Toyota aimed to reach a mobile-obsessed, auto-ambivalent Millennial audience and communicate that the new car was designed just for them. This new Corolla needed to wipe away decades of its “boring” perception and get the attention of people who dismissed it for everything it lacked.

Appropriately named the “Enterprising Dreamers,” these Millennials are looking to take their personal and professional ambitions to the next level, and they want their first car to get them there. Always connected via their smartphones, these first-time car buyers are looking for a simple car-shopping experience, and want to feel like they got something special from the purchasing process.

Creative was used as an opportunity to show younger car buyers that the 2014 Corolla is an elevated vehicle, styled and equipped to help them reach new heights. The integrated campaign featured unique experiences in the places where they spent most of their time — online, on the phone, and on their social networks. The Corolla mobile campaign offered consumers an entirely new way to interact with the brand: from the small screen first. A mobile site made it fun to explore the car and connected shoppers to a Toyota dealer in their area.

Corolla hasn’t seen an immersive mobile campaign like this before. The mobile efforts were new to the market, and as such, evaluation of the work was based on perception shift, market receptivity to a new form of engagement, and advertising that originated on the small screen first.

To accomplish the objective, the brand re-imagined online car shopping, and reached the audience with mobile experiences that brought all the components of shopping for a car into the palm of one’s hand.

The campaign rolled out with billboards in New York, Los Angeles, and several major markets that were equipped with near-field communications (NFC). Consumers with NFC-supported phones were able to tap their mobile devices against the ad to launch a virtual test drive. The out-of-home ads were also designed with a special printing process that triggered key features, such as lighting up the car’s LED headlights at night.

All mobile media directed guests to touch.toyota.com/corolla and the “Corolla Touch Drive,” a first-of-its-kind virtual driving experience that highlighted features of the car through a simulated test drive in a detailed 3D environment. Along the way, viewers could star favorite features to customize their own Corollas, and then get a quote or schedule a real test drive. This mobile-optimized website made shopping for a car fun, easy, and completely personalized.

In mobile iMedia, the brand launched the first-ever voice-activated mobile banner ad, where viewers explored car features by speaking directly into a smartphone. This highlighted key features through a guided conversation.

In order to demonstrate that the new Corolla is also incredibly fun to drive, Toyota created the most advanced iAd-based racing game to date. The game kept users engaged through exciting game play, and rewarded them for exploring features of the new Corolla with a free music download.

The 60-second television spot was converted into a mobile experience through the Shazam mobile app. Consumers who tagged the audio spot were taken directly to a branded experience page, where they could download songs from the campaign and access the virtual test drive.

The theme of the television spot also extended into social channels with custom “Six-Second Dance Demos” on Vine and Instagram. The videos showcased tutorials in dance styles through the decades, including the dance moves featured in the broadcast commercials. Viewers were encouraged to use the hashtag #CorollaStyle to post user-generated content showcasing their own elevated styles.

By: MMA Global