Advertising Case Study

Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive

Company Background
Toyota is the worlds leading car manufacturer and the name behind brands such as Camry, Corolla and the best-selling Prius hybrid. A pioneer in hybrid technology, Toyotas Hybrid Synergy Drive combines different power sources to maximize each of their strengths. Saatchi & Saatchi is a full-service, integrated communications network thats in the business of creating loyalty beyond reason for its clients brands.

Facebook Executive Summary

Client:

Agency:

Objective
Toyota had a couple of key objectives for the Facebook campaign that ran between May and June of 2011. It wanted to raise awareness of its unique hybrid technologya new approach for a company that typically markets specific car models. We wanted to actually look into how people would become advocates for the technology in the future, when we introduce more hybrid technology into our vehicles, says Adrian Lim, Regional Marketing Manager for Toyota. On a more tactical level, the company wanted to use the campaign to build the fan base on its newly created Facebook pageToyota Hybrid Solutions to at least 6,000-strong. If you have a fan engaging with your brand and the community, that is more valuable than just an impression or GRP, says

Objective: Raise awareness of Toyotas unique hybrid technology and acquire fans for a newly created Facebook page focused on the technology Solution: Premium Video Ads and Sponsored Stories driving fans to the Facebook page with a contest to help fuel engagement Key Lessons: eaturing television spots on F Facebook can amplify awareness of a campaign and extend the message to a broader audience. H olding a contest on Facebook that encourages users to interact with a brands content can increase engagement.

I think we were initially skeptical about how people would respond to a site where we were not trying to sell a car but instead trying to provide education on the brand. But this campaign has been great. We have been very excited about developing and nurturing our fan base.
Adrian Lim, Regional Marketing Manager for Toyota

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Lauren Ahearn, Brand Director for Saatchi & Saatchi. We hope to communicate and listen to our fan base and create a two-way dialogue that will ultimately deepen brand loyalty.

that persons friends. It amplifies our premium ads because it allows our friends to spread the message and it also gets their friends to discover and connect with the page, says Jean-Paul.

Approach
Working with Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota devised a 360-degree campaign centred on a fun, animated television spot highlighting hybrid technologys performance and fuel efficiency. At the end of the commercial, people were encouraged to visit the Toyota Hybrid Solutions page on Facebook to learn more. Everything was focused around pushing people to the Facebook page, says Jean-Paul Biondi, Senior Brand Executive, Saatchi & Saatchi. Once on Facebook, people were able to engage with interesting content including a Toyota Hybrid Solutions educational page. A unique Match our Solutions contest dangled a grand prize trip for two to the Maldives for the winner who provided the best solution to todays issues and received the most votes, fueling engagement. To drive people to the page, Toyota used Premium Video Ads featuring the animated spot with two different ad creativesone with the Hybrid Synergy Drive logo and Prius, and another with only the logo. Toyota used target filtering on Facebook to reach its desired audience of 21- to 35-year-olds in countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. It was really to localise the language so we could better connect with our country-specific audience, Jean-Paul says. Toyota followed the ads with a run of Sponsored Stories, which increase the visibility of peoples authentic interactions with brands on Facebook by surfacing them on the right column of Facebook pages. When someone liked the Toyota Hybrid Solutions page, the action created a Like Sponsored Story that was displayed to

Results
Nearly 13,000 views of the television spot from the Facebook Ads. 300 to 400 entries per week on the Match our Solutions contest. Its been a good response thus far each week as you actually have to write things out to enter, says Adrian. From zero to more than 50,000 fans during the three weeks that the ads ran, exceeding expectations by more than seven-fold. The Toyota Hybrid Solutions Page as of mid-August 2011 had nearly 63,000 fans, meaning it could reach more than 24 million friends of those fans globally through Friends of Connections targeting.

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7.4 million people were reached by the ads in Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore. 45,000 engagements with fans in those three countries during the campaign period.

I think we were initially skeptical about how people would respond to a site where we were not trying to sell a car but instead trying to provide education on the brand, says Adrian. But this campaign has been great. We have been very excited about developing and nurturing our fan base. Adrian adds that hes been especially pleased with the engagement rates hes seen on Facebook. I think we have a very high engagement rate on our page in terms of the comments that are posted by our fans. I think thats very positive and I think we are definitely on the right track at this point.

The Future
Toyota is continuing the Match our Solutions contest on the Hybrid Solutions Page and is looking at ways to leverage Facebook in the future. I think that moving forward, there will be some marketing challenges across the region that we would like to rectify using Facebook, says Adrian.