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Toyota Hilux takes the digital high ground

Toyota Hilux has taken the digital high ground with an interactive website designed by Draftfcb Impact to provide visitors with an energetic, rewarding and dynamic online experience.

The critical driver of this experience is an online game that reflects the aggressive styling, power, luxury and legendary toughness of the Toyota Hilux. Located at www.hiluxcountry.co.za, the game exists in the highly interactive Web 2.0 environment.

Visitors to the site become citizens of ‘Hilux Country', a virtual world where they compete in a number of challenges to prove their proficiency and toughness, and earn the trust and respect of those joining Tough Book, Hilux Country's social network. Only those who unlock the secrets of the game and progress through all its levels will stand in line to win a brand new Toyota Hilux at the end of January 2009.

The site was launched without fanfare late in 2008 but proved so entertaining that visitors spontaneously began sharing its URL with friends and families. Today, just five weeks after launch, it has secured 2 800 registered users and is attracting 200 new users a day, each new visitor spending at least an hour on the site. While these figures are low compared to the reach of the more traditional media, they are more than impressive in the South African online environment, particularly given the zero starting base.

“We are delighted with the response to Hilux Country. The Draftfcb Impact team has done a great job using the medium to create ‘glue' between our customers and our brand,” said Toyota's manager for web communication systems, James Smith.

“Not only is the site being talked about in offices and over lunches, in emails and on blogs, it is attracting both new and repeat visitors with each visitor spending upwards of an hour at a time on the site. This, we believe, is a fantastic foundation on which we will build and enhance the relationship between Hilux and Hilux owners going forward,” he said.

www.hiluxcountry.co.za was developed by Draftfcb Impact's team of designers Richard Fitzgerald (creative director), Julie Webb, Adrian Van Vuuren and Adi Jude (copywriter) and programmers Stefan Kiener and Abrie Burger. It is the key, and first to be launched, component of a much larger campaign intended to remind Hilux owners and potential owners that Toyota Hilux is ‘beyond tough'. All other elements of the campaign, while stressing the robustness and durability of the Hilux, will direct consumers to the website.

The overriding ‘big idea' behind this integrated campaign is that, in Hilux Country, everything stops for a Hilux. This is cleverly demonstrated in the television commercial, which broke several weeks after the launch of the website and in which even a heavy steam train makes way for a Hilux crossing its tracks.

Several print executions reinforce this idea, while others focus on its features - its impressive load-bearing capabilities, for example, suggested by the red warning flag tied around an elephant's trunk protruding over the back of tailgate.

While point-of-sale and brochures were completed by the Draftfcb Impact team, the creatives responsible for the television, radio, print and cinema executions included group executive creative director, Ashley Bacon and Draftfcb Johannesburg's Brent Liebenberg, Eve Sigalas and Connie Powys. The shoot took four days, and took place in the Western Cape and just outside Pretoria. It features an original country song written by Sigalas for Hilux and performed by Alistair Coakley.

Said Toyota SA senior advertising manager, Pieter Klerck: “The Hilux has always been defined by the word ‘tough' but it's a positioning several of our competitors have, with varying degrees of success, tried to claim as their own.

“We briefed Draftfcb to develop a campaign that would remind the market that Hilux is not just tough, it is beyond tough. At the same time, we wanted to salute the uniqueness of the Hilux driver, and create a platform that would provide us with the means to foster the relationship he, or she, has with the brand.

“The web site and supporting campaign merge these three divergent objectives admirably: Hilux is tough enough to stop a steam train … in fact, everything stops for Hilux, except life!”

“This campaign is a brave paradigm shift for Toyota Hilux,” said Bacon. “Of course, Toyota is known as one of the most digitally-aware motor manufacturers and marketers in the country, but this is the first time digital has been at the core of a Hilux communication.

“We think the choice of media clearly demonstrates Toyota's leadership position in the market, and reflects what consumers want from brands and companies today. At the same time, the tone, look and feel, and message remains true to the Toyota Hilux brand, which Toyota has taken such care to build - together with Draftfcb - over the past 40 years.

“Interestingly, the storyboard for the television commercial tested the ‘toughness' of the production industry. Securing the use of a working steam train proved a logistical challenge for most. Bruce Painter at CAB, however, arranged for us to use one of Rovos Rail's locomotives and interpreted the board in a way which ensured that our vision for Hilux was clearly represented.”

26 Jan 2009 15:59

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