I saw a new Toyota commercial on Friday featuring a Prius. You see the car jerking down the street and the camera view then goes to the inside of the car. The close up of the passenger and driver show them jerking back and forth and the male says something like "see the battery regenerates when you break." Its pretty funny. I only saw it once this past Friday but I have been looking for it again since.
Discovery has been showing a series of Toyota commercials. The one you mention has the driver slowly accelerating, then braking and saying "Recharge" every time he does. The interior shot shows him pointing to the display explaining to his clearly exasperated wife how he's recharging the battery. I know the look of the wife quite well!!! It is pretty cute. The other Toyota hybrid commercial I saw was for the Highlander Hybrid. I don't recall the tag line but it shows a guy in a sports car (looked like a mustang to me) being blown away by the HiHy. Then they mention the 268HP and acceleration speed. 15 sec. spot. Finally, I saw the Lexus 400h commercial. They list things that don't make sense together "Deafening-Silence" and stuff like that. Then it says "Performance-Hybrid". And then a quick blurb on the performance features of the 400h.
I saw the ad with the Prius in it the other evening. I did note that they mentioned the HSD, but not the Prius.
The HiHy commercial is cute. Midlife crisis guy in his sports car getting passed by the HiHy, as something like "finally, a 268hp hybrid" is read by the announcer. I also saw the 400h commercial. You can really tell the different markets they're aiming for.
I have seen this commercial numerous times on FOX NEWS, the describtion here is kind of misleading. It is a humorous look at the car where the husband tries and shows his wife the MFD screen when the car is re-charging, and he keeps hitting the brake to show her the WONDER of the Toyota Hybrid system, that scene is in a Prius. The commercial is for the hybrid system, and there are parts where the highlander is also featured.
If I had to guess, I would say that Toyota's idea behind the commercial (with the guy braking and recharging) was to help educate the large number of people who still think that hybrid cars have to be plugged in at night. I thought that it was interesting that the neighborhood where the guy was driving seemed to be populated with only Prius owners (a subliminal message that everyone will have one eventually?)
There's a copy of the commercial available for downloading on my website. Just follow the new link on my homepage.
Wow, I didn't notice that all of them were hybrids! I had noticed the last car was a Silver Prius, but must have missed the others. The way things are going, I don't doubt that the majority of households will have a hybrid with the way things are going with oil prices.
