Toyota “Pounding” ad.

by Lauredhel on December 14, 2009

Everyone’s talking about this prize-winning Toyota Yaris ad, winner of a competition organised by by Saatchi & Saatchi.

Here it is, transcribed for you, for those who want to access the conversations but can’t access the ads.

A white bloke in his late teens or very early twenties, dressed in dark pants and a white collared shirt, arrives at a large house in the evening. I’ll call him Date. He rings the bell, and adjusts his clothing, looking slightly nervous, yet cocky.

A middle-aged white man in a suit and tie answers the door. I’ll call him Dad.

Date, cheerfully: Hi, I’m Horny.

Dad, looking cross: Hi, I’m Seething.

Date, still cheerful: I’m here to take Jennifer’s virginity out tonight. Is she ready to go?

[Dad furrows his brows.]

Date: I hope I haven’t come too prematurely. [grins]

A young women’s voice off-screen, I’ll call her Woman: I’m coming! I’m coming! [Woman appears just coming down off the stairs, dressed in a little black dress and jewellery, long brunette hair loose and wavy.]

Date, lasciviously: You will be soon. [raises an eyebrow and leers]

Woman: Bye Mum! Bye Dad! [kisses Dad on the cheek]

Dad: Waiiit…

[Woman stands back in the doorway. Dad advances through the doorway, and talks 'privately' with Date.]

Dad, sternly: Do you have any protection while you’re driving my daughter home?

Date: Oh, yeah, of course! [fumbles in pocket, produces keys] I’ve – I’ve got a Yaris. [clicks the central locking, the red car beeps]

Dad: Oooh! [raises eyebrows approvingly, smiles at Date]

Date: Yep! Couple of, ah, nice big SRS airbags up front, to ah, throw my head into [holds hands up as if cupping giant breasts, makes brbrbrbrbrbrbr noise as if putting head between breasts and mucking around]

[Dad smiles.]

Date: Oh, and traction control for when it gets a bit [lowers voice slightly] slippery and wet. And the best part – it has special [unintelligible] Safe-T-Cell technology!

Dad: Really?

Date: Mm-hmm!

Dad: So she can take a good pounding in any direction! [makes fisting motion]

Date: [mouth hangs open] Um – you bet!

[Dad grins.]

Woman: Come on. [nudges up beside Date, looks lasciviously at him] I’m ready to blow.

Date and Woman walk down the path.

Date: [turns around] Oh, and ~~I’ll have her back~~ I’ll have her on her back by eleven, I promise.

[Dad waves gormlessly.]

[Date and Woman get in the car and drive off. Music starts. Caption: "For good clean getaways." Dad, on the porch, does the Toyota triumphant-leap.]

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Tagged as: ad, advertising, commercial, misogyny, saatchi & saatchi, toyota, toyota yaris, yaris

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This article was written by lauredhel

Lauredhel is a forty-something woman with a disability. She lives in her Western Australian family home where books, Lego, and soapmaking gear constantly compete for space. She blogs about feminism, reproductive justice, freedom from violence, the use and misuse of language, medical science, being disabled, her vegetable garden, and whatever else pops into her head. Lauredhel also blogs at FWD/Forward (feminists with disabilities), scribbles at her personal dreamwidth journal Selective and Arbitrary, and co-moderates Hollaback Australia. She joined Hoyden About Town in 2007.

lauredhel has written 1315 posts for Hoyden About Town. If you liked this post, you might like to subscribe to the feed via RSS or EMAIL to get instantly updated for more posts like this.

{ 26 comments }

1 Stitch Sista December 14, 2009 at 10:19 pm: Absolutely and utterly appalling. Even worse than I expected.
2 DeusExMacintosh December 14, 2009 at 10:33 pm: Wow. Tasteful.
3 Kristian December 14, 2009 at 10:36 pm: I thought the line;

“I’ll have her back by eleven, I promise.”

was actually;

“I’ll have her on her back by eleven, I promise.”

Just to make things worse.
4 Lauredhel December 14, 2009 at 11:22 pm: Quite right, Kristian – I don’t always process that sort of gabbling speech very well. Fixed.
5 koipond December 14, 2009 at 11:45 pm: Wha, wha, wha? See, I heard back at eleven too.

That just turned that ad from disgustingly appauling to incredibly grotesque.
6 Nacey December 15, 2009 at 12:05 am: You have got to be fucking kidding me. D: D:
7 OuyangDan December 15, 2009 at 1:11 am: Oh holy hell, that is awful! Fucking no! That is just…wow.
OuyangDan´s last blog ..Monday Random Ten
8 Heather Freeman December 15, 2009 at 2:07 am: I kept having to scroll back up to verify that this was real and not some kind of parody. Because Oh. My. Gods. This surpasses fail.
9 Jha December 15, 2009 at 2:23 am: Oh hale no =( That’s just fucking disgusting. Why are people so sick?
10 Lynda Hopgood December 15, 2009 at 8:48 am: I’d like to know how many people along the way – from the ad people to the Toyota people to the actors to the television station people – said “wait a minute. That’s appallingly sexist and inappropriate!”

And of those (if any), I wonder how many were women?
11 Fine December 15, 2009 at 10:47 am: One of the most stupid things about it is that the Yaris is supposed to appeal to young women and that this appalling tvc is somehow supposed to get young women to buy the car! How stupid are these people? (Rhetorical question only)

But the satisfying thing about it, is that there has been such an outcry that it’s been pulled.
12 annaham December 15, 2009 at 1:03 pm: I saw it this morning and am still boggling.
13 Lauredhel December 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm: Via the Shakesville thread: Toyota has “apologised” for the ad. (I’m putting apology in scarequotes because I don’t think for a second that they’re sorry, and I think they’ve probably achieved exactly what they wanted to achieve.)

The maker of the ad, Micha McDonald, has this to say:

If anyone is offended by this I’m truly sorry – and suck my dick.

McDonald is freelancing at The Foundry in Sydney, in case you’re looking to avoid him. A FAIL out of the Foundry has featured before at Hoyden About Town.
14 koipond December 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm: Thinking about it, one of the doubly disturbing bits here is how the father viscerally gets involved with the sex fantasy described. So much so that even the young dude gets a little shocked by the comments.

Seriously WTF.
15 Mindy December 15, 2009 at 3:05 pm: @ Lauredhel

The comments on that article are quite interesting, apart from the usual “no sense of humour” fail ones. Most can the ’short film’, and someone even links to FF101.
16 Buttons December 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm: A comment on The Age website called it a piece of “witty” social commentary. How? On what planet?
17 Kate December 15, 2009 at 6:10 pm: I actually think this could have been a clever if it was an ad focusing on a woman taking her safety into her own hands to the bemusement/shock of her parents.

There is just no respect from the date or dad in the version made.
18 The Amazing Kim December 15, 2009 at 7:06 pm: Boring. That is one dull ad.
19 Linda Radfem December 15, 2009 at 9:03 pm: These cutting edge creative dudes really do think they’re inventing something new every time they do this stuff.

Yeah, the comments are surprisingly ok, although a little bit deuteronomous.
20 Kirstente December 16, 2009 at 1:37 am: Ewwww.
21 DeusExMacintosh December 16, 2009 at 5:13 am: Lovely quote Lauredhel (@13). No taste and no manners either.
22 SunlessNick December 16, 2009 at 7:07 am: These cutting edge creative dudes really do think they’re inventing something new every time they do this stuff.

And they think its daring.
23 tigtog December 16, 2009 at 11:19 am: Good article giving a timeline over at Mumbrella: How Saatchi & Saatchi’s Toyota social media disaster unfolded

Wearing my journo hat, it was instantly obvious that by picking it as their winner, Toyota had endorsed the content. The comments on Facebook and on YouTube probably amounted to a couple of dozen at that point, but they all made the same point – it was sexist and offensive. And because it was made by a production house, it looked like a well made ad, not user generated content.

I started to write the story. And I called Toyota’s social media marketing boss Todd Connolly at home. When I put it to him that people were reacting against it, he was relaxed. He talked about how well made it was – which is true.

A marketer rather than a PR man, he saw it as user generated content. We had a cheerful chat even after I flagged up that I thought this was going to be a big deal. I suggested he looked at the comments, which he hadn’t seen and I suspect nobody else had been monitoring either – certainly there were no moderator responses.

I don’t think he realised that journalists and the public would not see it simply as user generated content once Toyota had selected it as its winner. Why would he? That relies on having the advice of a PR practitioner, who as far as I can see hadn’t been involved in that process.

I posted the story. A few minutes later, the first blogger to link to the story, Philip O’Neill, memorably referred to it as “abuser generated content”. It was a phrase which was to go global.

Within an hour or two the penny began to drop at Toyota. The video was taken down.

However, even at that stage I don’t think that those behind it actually understood that it was causing genuine offence to the public.
24 blue milk December 20, 2009 at 12:27 am: Blatant sexism and exploitation, cutting edge in advertising since.. forever.
25 Grant Watson December 21, 2009 at 6:53 pm: Oh God I so don’t want to own my Toyota Yaris any more.
26 Helen December 21, 2009 at 11:03 pm: Will never drive my Yaris through Paris with the warm wind in my hair…