Offender: Toyota
Campaign: Yaris' "Clean Getaways" video
The sin
The Toyota Yaris "Clean Getaways" online video, targeted at Australian audiences, was created as part of a short-film competition organized by Toyota in conjunction with agency Saatchi & Saatchi. During the sexual-innuendo-laced video, a young girl's father and her date banter back and forth in thinly veiled double entendres, presumably referring to the raunchy sex romp that the date has planned for the evening. Choice dialogue tidbits include "it has traction control for when it gets a bit slippery and wet," "a couple of nice big air bags to throw my head into," and "I'll have her on her back by 11, I promise."
The ad almost got away with being accused only of sexism. But then the father took it up a notch by throwing in this line: "She can take a good pounding in any direction." Yep. Now we've got some incest on our hands as well.
The objectors
After viewer voting pushed the ad to first place, the competition's Facebook page was flooded with outraged remarks and accusations of everything from juvenile humor to the promotion of father-daughter hanky-panky. One comment declared, "I have written and lodged a formal complaint with Toyota's Australian head office regarding this specific competition entry/winner. I would encourage those who feel the same to also write formal complaints to Toyota. This is 2009! Women should not have to be dealing with this vulgar objectification."
The aftermath
Toyota wasted little time in issuing a formal apology, stating, "Immediately upon receiving negative feedback, at Toyota's direction, the video was removed from a third-party website on Sunday. Toyota understands and accepts that the content of the video was offensive."
According to the Australian marketing trade pub Mumbrella, the ad's director also expressed regret for any offense that was taken from the ad. But not all parties were so penitent. The creative behind the script, Micha McDonald, expressed little remorse. In the comments section on Mumbrella, McDonald wrote, "Yeah -- It's getting totally SLAMMED by everyone -- But that's exactly what we wanted it to do. Basically we put a $60,000 production behind a 1 minute dodgy 'Dick Joke' that looks like an actual ad -- and it WON. That's social media 4 ya -- Gotta love it when the big boys get burnt!!"
