Lately all I have seen are commercials for the Camry, Corolla & Tundra. Hardly ever for the Prius. Guess they are to busy making the Prii to do a commercial & put themselves even farther behind getting them out. Finally get to pick mine up tomorrow, can't wait!!!
IMHO it is a smart decision. Why waste money on advertising when you can't keep them in stock now. I also agree that it would cause problems with the current waiting list as it is.
Make that an 8 month waiting list. You don't spend money advertising a car in which the demand exceeds the supply. Even GM would know that. LOL. I did see a used 08 Prius with 15K miles in the Sunday papers at a local Toyota dealer for $30K.
In the UK, Toyota ran a somewhat aggressive billboard campaign, with a metallic blue Prius next to the words "Bandwagon" and a tagline indicating the Prius was the first hybrid established in the UK. Never seen any TV ads here though.
There has been an ad on TV in the UK, but I have only seen it twice (maybe only once and dreaming the other..?). It asks something along the lines of what word you would use to justify your purchase... something like that. I know its a weird advert and only towards the end does the penny drop its a Prius. Not a very clever ad IMO
Never seen a Toyota advert for Prius in NZ, either print or TV. I have only seen dealer adverts in the Auckland paper when they happen to have more than one in stock and, very rarely, by the Clean Green Car Co who import used JDM models.
A local Toyota dealer's TV ad appears to have all the models in a series of quick shots, but then has no voice-over or text graphics mentioning Prius. Prius is showing up as a "product placement" in ads that have nothing to do with selling cars, such as a nice profile shot at a fast-food drive-up window.
Sadly, I don't think GM does know that- their commercials still don't address their issues, they are just more lies about how "gas conscious" their cars are...total crap!
Even in 2004, there was a relative paucity of Prius commercials. As justkurkin said, for the last four years the Prius has pretty much sold itself.
i've noticed a few "product placement cameos" starring the Prius in advertisements as well; the only one i can think of off hand is for Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts. i think it's either a Spectra Blue or a Magnetic Gray Prius that drives across the screen just before the guy runs across the street to talk a guy out of towing his car off .... Toyota is must be saving millions of dollars by NOT having to advertise the car ... but they're ALSO probably spending millions more than originally intended in an effort to sell their OTHER products; you know ... the ones that, seemingly, nobody's interested in right now ....
There's a commercial in which a woman rubs some Planters peanuts behind her ears and the guys are driven crazy by it. One of the poor saps is a Prius diver who gets out of his car and starts blindly walking across the street. Until, that is, a garbage truck takes him out.
Speaking of GM and car ads I can't help but get irritated at this Cadillac commercial. "Big Northstar Engine with Big Fuel Economy" look at the fine print at the bottom 15 city 23 highway. They just don't get it www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9LQPCxuTlU
Did anyone see PBSs (?) "car of the future" tonight (Tuesday) When they did the gas/electric (HEV) part what car did they show - you guessed it - you can watch the show online if your into watching 1 hour shows on your computer ... NOVA | Car of the Future | PBS
I think they did that with the EV1 didn't they? Huge demand for the EV1 and what little advertising they had was crap. I have seen a few Prius only commercials at the beginning of the year then I seen some that just quickly flashed the Prius and now I don't even see it in the Toyota lineup commercials that quickly list their "best" sellers.
