An alarm bell rings as four men in ski masks exit a bank and find their getaway car being towed away. The bandits run across the street and jump in the fastest-looking car in sight. With the police in pursuit, the bumbling robbers are surprised to realize the stolen car is a Prius. Far from its reputation as an eco-friendly commuter car, this Prius is fast, nimble, and spacious. After some thrilling turns, the fugitives are cornered. Utilizing the car’s backup camera and superior handling, the driver makes a dramatic escape. The Prius’ legendary fuel economy extends the chase beyond city limits. The Prius driver begins to fall asleep along a country road. Suddenly, he’s alerted by the car’s pre-collision system as he approaches a police roadblock. The quiet hum of the Prius engine enables the driver to slip past the dozing cops. The Prius escapes, and the chase continues.

Implementation:

The vehicle that revolutionized the way that Americans look at hybrids required a grand stage to unveil its next generation model. So we introduced “The Longest Chase” at Super Bowl 50, the nation’s most-watched television event of the year.

Timeline:

We capitalized on the impact of the Super Bowl spot by running ads across various media, for the next four weeks.

Placement:

The spot ran during one of the most coveted time slots of the Super Bowl. At 90 seconds, the ad was longer than most others in the game and gave the impression of a short film, rather than another 30-second ad. It was then seen everywhere from movie screens to digital pre-roll to high-profile broadcast programming, generating awareness across a massive audience.

Scale

In the first flight alone, Prius ads ran across 35 networks with almost 2,500 individual units, combined.

Reach:

• The Prius launch film had over 88.5 Million total live impressions and ranked 9th of 55 ads in the Super Bowl*.

Engagement:

• The campaign generated immediate media wear-in and engagement with Prius content beyond broadcast, elevating interaction across all media channels. In addition, the Prius model landing page on Toyota.com saw a 304% increase in visits and Toyota topped all auto advertisers in overall game day social media conversation.

Impact:

• The Prius broadcast campaign is one of the top performing campaigns in ad effectiveness in Toyota history. Success of the creative launch is spilling over to digital which has already established lifts in opinion and consideration.

*The weighted index is based on reach, ad effectiveness and popular opinion and is weighted against all Super Bowl advertisers.