For a car that has gotten a lot of poor labels attached to it such as boring and ugly, the commercial promoting it is the exact opposite.
As soon as this commercial comes on, the atmosphere takes over. The viewer becomes enthralled in the new world that they have now entered. Although it is a cartoonish world to say the least, Toyota does a good job of taking the concept and running with it. They didn’t cut any corners with immersing the viewer in this new world. The part that ties the whole ad together is how they make it relatable to the common person. Everyone, at one point or another, has gone to the beach, had a picnic or has packed the car for a trip. Anyone watching can see themselves owning this car, doing the things in life that they want to do.
The attention to detail was simply amazing. Even after watching these 30 seconds about 10 times, I am sure that I didn’t see all of the small things that we moving around. But I did catch in the first scene we can see a small gnome hopping around, in the beach scene the girl in the back seat is showing off her reclining seat, and in the kite scene we can see all the interesting looking bird houses. These little parts continue to add to the world that they created, which makes for a great commercial.
I am always going to zone in on the fact that car commercials shouldn’t sell the car, they should sell the experience a customer can have after buying the car. This ad does just that, it offers up many places that the car can be used and on top of that it incorporates the features of the car, such as the large truck space, into a realistic example.
In a Sherlock Holmes movie or book, the ending makes the overall story so much better as a whole and the same goes for this commercial’s ending. As soon as the narrator begins to speak, we can start to notice that the scenes are very much attached to each other which breaks the illusion that they are all separate places. The atmosphere is broken and allows us to focus on the product the ad is centered around. All of these parts of the commercial make a great short story that we don’t want to end. Yet, the story doesn’t have to end there you can continue to enjoy the story if you buy the car (or at least that is what Toyota wants you to think).
Another key feature to this ad is the song. The job of finding the song to put in a commercial is no easy task because it can make or break the final project. The song Toyota chose, Come Along by Fabienne Delsol was the perfect fit because it helps the viewer to truly get immersed. With a great song, comes the ability to remember it. I found myself singing this song in my head even after I was done watching Tv. Since I could remember the song, I could remember the commercial and in turn, the product. The person who found this song and put it in the ad should get a raise.
This commercial is fantastic but the one thing that I think is lacking is how it fast it is. I would have extended it to 45 seconds so that the ending didn’t have to be so rushed. It was a great ending but adding those seconds would have given it a better overall feel. With this in mind, I am going to give this ad a 9 out of 10. The creativity was enough to fill a couple of commercials, the story made me want to keep watching and I am still singing away to that song.
Here is a link to the other Prius V commercial which is also an amazing ad. And here is a link to a behind the scenes video of these two commercials.
-Adam
