As Toyota was set to launch the all-new, most powerful Tacoma ever, the competition was chasing its legendary status as the favorite of adventurous thrill-seekers. Our objective was to appeal to new and loyal mid-size pick up buyers who are increasingly younger & more diverse, with an emphasis on awareness and opinion. The brief: Get spontaneous adventurers, driven by their never-ending pursuit of the next level, to rally around Tacoma as their co-conspirator.

We launched the all-new Tacoma, Toyota’s $30K “fun truck,” with nothing but a little piece of molded plastic. Rejecting truck category cliches - engines, horsepower, drive trains, sheet metal – we focused on part number 74610-0R010-C0, the grab handle, aka The “Oh Shit” Handle, named as such because that’s what you’re saying when things are so extreme that you’re grabbing onto it for dear life. And that’s exactly what our thrill-seeking target audience finds exciting. To them, fear and fun are the same thing. By focusing on The “Oh Shit” Handle, we made the most powerful Tacoma ever, the most exciting truck in America.

Data showed our target valued things like exterior styling (39%), a fun driving experience (55%) and toughness (55%) when it came to their truck. Toughness initially seemed like a practical outlier; however, ethnographies revealed these people needed a durable truck for all of the impractical fun that they planned on having in it. We also learned our target was passionate about sharing their personality, creativity and attitude towards fun. This was commonly manifesting this through their vehicle – they customize them by adding on after market items (bed covers, rims, audio, lighting, etc.), badges and bumper stickers, and DIY additions. We used this data to define our audience as “spontaneous adventurers”: thrill seekers, with a sense of humor/attitude that love extreme pursuits. We further segmented our audience by age, under and over 40, to better target the kinds of activities which appealed to each age group.

With such a simple yet surprising idea, we knew we could convey it anywhere and everywhere. So we did. Every execution, from our Super Bowl launch spot, to the teasers beforehand, to the social crowd-sourced, surprise-and-delight, bespoke grab handles, to the “smart handle” prototyping, was crafted with the same two principles: 1) Keep the quality as high as Toyota’s products and 2) Share the target’s irreverent attitude toward their version of fun.

- The work made a statistically significant positive impact across the measured metrics including, Tacoma opinion, Tacoma consideration, Toyota Brand Buzz, Tacoma buzz, Tacoma affinity and imagery.

- Tacoma participation in the Super Bowl garnered above average (2.5x) search interest when compared to all Super Bowl advertisers.

- Traffic to the Tacoma page of Toyota.com increased by 91%

- The work 1) garnered positive reactions on social channels as viewers related it to their own real-life driving experiences, and 2) over-indexed in ‘appeal’ due to its playful humor and relatability.

- PR coverage massed 1.2B total PR impressions, the equivalent of $7.2M AVE

- PR coverage spanned publications such as Variety, Automotive News, AdWeek, and Autoevolution