Uncle Yaris Site Promotes Toyota Yaris
A recently launched site, called Uncle Yaris goes and goes appears, based on the preponderance of Google search results for the term and the likeness of the site's color to Toyota's brand colors, to be a promotion for the Toyota Yaris which is scheduled to go on sale in early Spring 2006. The site, like many of these non-transparent promotions is kooky, odd and attempts to somehow be hip. Anyway, that's all the time we have to spend on promotions that waste our time by not telling us what is being promoted. Sort of counterproductive, don't you think? Of course, there's always a chance our assessment of this is completely wrong.
Comments
i don't know if it's counter-productive...the element of being mysterious is intriguing me...the commercial that i saw made me giggle so i guess that means it's working right? i laughed and remembered the name yaris so i guess that's exactly what they wanted to have happen. i'll keep looking at the site from time to time...i'll probably forget about it unless they keep advertising as much as they are. i say that now but we all know how repetitive ads lead to common knowledge of a product/brand...
It sort of reminds me of the crown royal commercial billboard series. The Boards never said crown royal until near the end of the series but they always had the same format so it left people wondering what was next and actually looking for the ads. A sort of 'suspense' approach. Althoug in this case, it's less of a humour thing, people in this case are more just confused and may keep thining about it to figure out what the hell it is.
He's also working with the Canadian Exclaim Magazine. (www.exlaim.ca)
He now has a Cd selection of favorite local Toronto bands called "Uncle Yaris knows his tunes" which was apparently sponsored by Exclaim
I was handed one outside The Drake Hotel, Toronto so I suspect that it might have been aimed at upscale clubgoers too - no?
I play in one of the bands that appeared on this CD. I am upset that we were tricked by Exclaim. They never told us that our songs would be used to sell a car.
The whole Uncle Yaris character and advertising campaign was created by two guys at the Toronto agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
They also created the Toyota ad with the dad telling his son he was cut from the football team and then joined the running club which was recently been spoofed on the Rick Mercer show.