Personally I think my level of Carbon Footprints is lower than average. I ride the bus or my bicycle to class, recycle when I can, run or take the bus to the gym and I turn off random lights and fans when they're not in use. I use my SIGG Eco-Friendly, Reusable Swiss Water bottle everyday, I bring my reusable coffee tumbler with me when I go for coffee and I always bring my reusable grocery bags when I hit up the store. Over the past years, green campaigns have grown to match the growing trend. More people are buying products that are organic, staying away from those that harm the environment and watching the way in which they, themselves, are affecting the environment.
Green campaigns are everywhere in the media, from Clorox Green Works with its "Powerful Cleaning Done Naturally" campaign by DDB West, to the inspiration for this blog, the Toyota 3rd generation Prius and its "Harmony Between Man, Nature and Machine" campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi LA.
In the TV spots, as the Toyota Prius drives down a lane millions of people bloom, grow and sway in the wind as it passes by. The people are the landscape as they hum and sing a beat while they do acrobatics and climb on each other to become a swaying tree or a moving stream. Every new commercial reminds me of a scene from Cirque du Soleil. From afar the people on screen genuinely look like the object they intend to be. Being a hybrid car, the spot is as close to what the tag line suggests ("Harmony Between Man, Nature and Machine") without it being an electric car and not having any fuel emissions- but that's a different story all together.
When I watch the commercials I like to single in on one acrobat to see how the intended effect is produced. It's amazing to watch and every new commercial is just as entertaining as the last. The portrayal of harmony is even adequately portrayed in the score- which Saatch & Saatchi and Toyota have made available for download on the Web site. They even produced a Web spot that reveals how the commercials came together in "The Making of 'Harmony.'" If you have the time I think it is definitely worth watching. The spot reveals the use of blue screens, how the extras were placed to create the scenes and it has commentary from the on set crew. At the end it reveals that "over 1,000,000 people were created from 200 extras," "9 different Nature costumes were created," and that the spot took nine days to make, 12-hours each day. It even lists how many of each costume were created. Awesome and crazy but the outcome portrays the effort.
(My favorite spots happen to be "MPG" and "Solar." The emerging oasis in "Solar" and the Earth and Sun in "MPG" are mesmerizing and interesting, eye catching to say the least.)
The print ads for the campaign accurately mirror the TV spots and they are fun too, but not as exciting (less extras are used and they only create certain landscapes within the ad.) One print ad, seen in the May 2009 issue of Entertainment Magazine, shows a Prius on a lane zooming past a "man"-made tree, bent over from the fast and strong wind created by the passing car. The tree is the only landscape of the ad that is made of people. The rest of the background landscape is just that- a picture of a landscape.
I enjoyed the print ad, thought it flowed with the rest of the campaign, but I have to admit, I was a little let down- where is the harmony in the print ad between "man, nature and machine" that the tag line suggests? Only the lone element of the tree produces the message. More could have been accomplished with the ad. However, the final draft does have the eye catching image to relate it to the rest of the campaign media.
I enjoyed the print ad, thought it flowed with the rest of the campaign, but I have to admit, I was a little let down- where is the harmony in the print ad between "man, nature and machine" that the tag line suggests? Only the lone element of the tree produces the message. More could have been accomplished with the ad. However, the final draft does have the eye catching image to relate it to the rest of the campaign media.
According to an article written May 11, titled "2010 Toyota Prius Marketing Theme: Harmony Between Man, Nature and Machine" by John Voelcker, Saachi & Saatchi also put up "harmony installations" in large cities. They featured "oversized flower sculptures" that had free WiFi capabilities and charging power outlets, bus shelters ventilated by photovoltaic solar panels (which demonstrated the solar moonroof option for the vehicle) and living flower "floralscape" billboards that went up next to some of California's highways. [Photos curtesy of Toyota USA Newsroom.]
Pretty impressive. But, all of this leaves me wondering, "If it is all about 'Harmony Between Man, Nature and Machine,' why not make the Toyota Prius completely electric?" Well that answer, friends, lies within the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?. But, that said, hopefully things will change back and the car companies will start mass producing electric cars again. But in the meantime- the Toyota Prius will have to do. At least we'll be in harmony for the time being.
Till next time,
The New Ad Grad
