I saw a Toyota ad in Time magazine this morning and, I was quite disappointed in it. The Huang Family is featured. The quote across the top in large font: After 9 years, 4 Priuses and 300,000 miles, we wouldn't drive any other car! Um, 4 cars of any make / model in 9 years is too many cars, and 300,000 spread over 4 cars is not very much mileage per, either. And what's with "Priuses," I thought the plural was Prii!
I rather like "Priuses" as the plural for a Prius, and the person who wrote the print ad for Time probably hasn't been looped into the cute name that the Prius hipsters have chosen for their car. Prius people already know about the Pri-eye deal, which always makes me wonder what they will come up with as a hip, focus-group-testsd collective pronoun for more than one Priuses. A pod? A pack? I don't mind ads that invite normal people to think of normal Priuses as a normal car that can be driven like any other normal car, BUT will reward you with ABnormally high fuel efficiency and maybe even a longer than normal life cycle-----oil use notwithstanding. If you're down with the whole green thing, then the idea should be to push Priuses out to the masses, and since the greenies are correct in that they pollute a lot less than.....say......a Dodge Challenger SRT then I think that the reduced stack gasses from this car will make it worth having to give up some of the elitism.
4 Priuses in 9 years is not a negative. The ad didn't say they wore out, they just upgraded to a new one more often. "Prii" may be technically correct, but it looks dumb and it's harder to pronounce.
Hmm well, I've kept each of my prior cars at least 8 years, and they had 80,000 or less on them. My Prius is now 5+ years old, with 43,000 miles. I'm planning on this being the last car I ever purchase. Guess I have a very different outlook to many. Oh, I should add, just me, one driver one car household. If the print ad did make mention of the efficiency, it was in the fine print at the bottom of the page; not what the ad was pushing, for sure.
i'm sure there's a healthy mix of those who keep their cars a long time, and those who trade every few years. why toyota is appealing to the second group i can only speculate, they buy more cars. don't be too disappointed, toyota has one of the worst ad agencies in the business.
Hey - at least its not a creepy curly haired giant doll made out of humans, singing hum hum hum hum. In my book that's a big advertising "plus" no matter how you slice it. Toyota's advertising for the Prius has been sorely lacking in the usual advertising technique; IE sexy models with crankin rock and roll in the background. Somehow - from their ads, you'd think Toyota's marketing has the idea that only Hollywood types, dweebs - intellects and nerds want to buy a Prius - instead of your average shlowmo . .
we focus on prius advertising, so it's easy to be critical. but i have to admit, 99.9% of all advertising is horrendous. but that doesn't mean it doesn't do what it's intended to do. i have no idea. i've seen a million doctor pepper ads, i've never been tempted to taste it.