Ask

Toyota asked Saatchi to develop a new marketing framework that focused on values-based relationships.

This approach aimed to shift from individual model launches targeting specific demographics to a lifestyle and community-centric evergreen presence featuring a variety of relevant vehicles — starting with outdoor enthusiasts.

Business Challenge

In the last few years vehicles have become so versatile that they have started to lose their distinctiveness. This is reflected in the increasing appeal of SUVs and the declining interest in sedans.

For Toyota, the overlapping appeal of models makes it difficult to identify & deliver unique targets across 20+ models.

Research Approach

To better understand the outdoor enthusiast, we took to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the Washington Cascades, and Alaska Range and embarked on a series of ethnographic research. In doing so, we became witnesses of the resilience, creativity, and jaded humor of adventurers.

Following our research, we created a trend forecasting deck that shared our firsthand accounts of experiencing the outdoors with enthusiasts, cultural shifts influencing the outdoor category, and a collection of best-in-class examples of brand work and inspirational content.

Some of my favorite topics that we covered included exploring the value of vulnerability, building a brand with social purpose, the boom in outdoor-adjacent activities, and inclusivity in the outdoor community.

Strategy

To reestablish Toyotas distinctiveness, we needed to shift from marketing what we made… to marketing how people use what we made to do the things they love.

To achieve this, we scheduled workshops with the creative team to share key points from our trend forecasting research and helped them ideate on the truest and most authentic aspects of the community that we needed to connect with in order to win over our audience.

Creative Solution

To resonate through our deep understanding of enthusiasts, we found the most beautiful and rugged zones imaginable to capture real adventures featuring committed outdoors people —not actors— who live and breathe the outdoors.