14406: Toyota And Burrell To Play In The Super Bowl.

Advertising Age reported Toyota handed a Super Bowl assignment to Burrell Communications, the automaker’s Black advertising agency. So after five years, Total Toyota actually reduced the total control enjoyed by White advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi? Well, at least there’s less of a chance that the spot will be shot on a former slave plantation.

Toyota gives its multicultural shop, Burrell, a Super Bowl assignment

The automaker will plug its RAV4 crossover

By E.J. Schultz

Toyota will appear in the Super Bowl for the second straight year, and the automaker is giving its multicultural agency, Burrell Communications, the assignment. The ad will be for the 2019 RAV4 compact crossover.

Saatchi & Saatchi normally takes the creative lead on Toyota’s big general market campaigns, including previous Super Bowl ads. So Burrell’s assignment represents a significant win for the agency.

“Toyota’s multi-agency approach is part of the brand’s broader strategy to embrace diversity nuances throughout the strategy, creative and communications of all its campaigns,” Toyota said in a statement. Saatchi & Saatchi will handle “media and communications strategies” for the ad, according to the statement. But “the Super Bowl execution will tap into learnings to have Burrell Communications develop and produce the creative.”

Burrell, which is on Toyota’s roster of regular agencies, is on the upswing thanks in part to its new Social Listening Lab. The proprietary tool, developed in 2017, gathers feedback for campaigns and pitches from a focus group of 10,000 African-American influencers with a combined reach of 115 million consumers.

Toyota sat out the 2017 Super Bowl, but came back in 2018 in a big way with three ads: two 60-second spots and one 30-second ad. It represented Toyota’s biggest Super Bowl ad buy ever. The 2018 game was broadcast by NBC, which also aired the Olympics starting just days later. Toyota is an Olympics sponsor, and has a tight relationship with NBC, so the large ad buy made sense.

A Toyota spokeswoman declined to reveal the length or creative details for the ad for Super Bowl LIII, which will be carried by CBS on Feb. 3.

Ed Laukes, head of marketing for the Toyota Division, told Automotive News that RAV4 is worthy of the “biggest set of eyeballs on the planet” that it will get with the Super Bowl ad. The vehicle, which was redesigned for 2019, is the best-selling nonpickup in the nation, according to Automotive News.

Toyota is the fourth automaker to confirm a Super Bowl ad buy, following Mercedes-Benz, Kia and Hyundai.

Last season, 11 auto commercials ran featuring six brands: Ram and Jeep (both owned by Fiat-Chrysler), as well as Hyundai, Kia, Toyota and Toyota-owned Lexus. In the 2017 game, eight automakers ran a total of 10 ads. Lexus has not commented on its plans for 2019. Honda has confirmed to Ad Age that it will sit out the game for the second straight year. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, a regular Super Bowl advertiser, has not yet made its plans public, and typically does not do so until the week leading up to the game.

13389: USAA Picks Less-Biased Partner.

Advertising Age reported USAA handed its business to White advertising agencies from Publicis Groupe, replacing White advertising agencies from IPG. The move started when USAA dumped White advertising agency Campbell Ewald following a racist email fiasco involving the C-E office in San Antonio. At one point, IPG hoped to retain the business by erecting a standalone White enterprise within its White network to exclusively service the client. Instead, USAA opted for White offerings from Publicis Groupe. According to Ad Age, Razorfish Global CEO Shannon Denton said the new relationship “is part of Publicis and USAA’s goal to transform the industry. [Denton] added that USAA members are diverse and noted that Publicis Groupe believes the work on the account will be better and more creative if the team is also diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, race and ways of thinking.” Okay, but the White advertising agency in the Publicis Groupe mix is Saatchi & Saatchi, a place routinely executing total market tactics that ultimately marginalize minority professionals in the field. Plus, Saatchi & Saatchi’s former chairman sparked controversy with his clumsy remarks regarding White women in the industry. So USAA has not moved significantly closer to connecting with partners that reflect the USA—or even USAA, for that matter. Only in America.

Publicis Groupe Agency Team Wins USAA Account

By Lindsay Stein

USAA has selected a Publicis Groupe team, including Razorfish, Saatchi & Saatchi and others within the network, to handle all integrated marketing, communications and media after a competitive holding company review.

Publicis Groupe landed the business after what USAA referred to as “several months of rigorous interviews, on-site visits and in-depth discussions with several companies.” For the pitch, the holding company implemented its so-called “Power Of One” strategy by bringing together agencies and services from Publicis Communications, Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Media. In addition to Razorfish, the team includes Saatchi & Saatchi, MSLGroup, Mediavest|Spark and Prodigious. The team will be responsible for creative and content development, marketing, advertising and media buying, social media, corporate responsibility, PR and issues and crisis management.

USAA Chief Marketing Officer Roger Adams wouldn’t identify the other holding companies in the hunt but said though they all had integrated models, Publicis stood out, with its “spot on” examples of integrated creative across all marketing communications and social functions. Each company leader involved in the selection process—across all areas of PR, creative, marketing and social—unanimously chose Publicis Groupe, he added.

Publicis Groupe also rose above competitors because of its focus on diversity, which includes a pledge to hire 30% of new staffers on the team from diverse communities and backgrounds.

While the diversity aspect was called out in the RFP, Mr. Adams said Publicis Group “went well beyond what they were asked for and demonstrated how they would deliver diversity by turning it into a program.”

Shannon Denton, global CEO of Razorfish, who ran the pitch and headed up the team integration for it, said the program is part of Publicis and USAA’s goal to transform the industry. He added that USAA members are diverse and noted that Publicis Groupe believes the work on the account will be better and more creative if the team is also diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, race and ways of thinking.

The five key components of the diversity program are education, recruitment, onboarding, retention and recognition of talent, said Sandra Sims-Williams, chief diversity officer of Publicis Groupe. The holding company will also work closely with USAA on the program.

All work being done by USAA’s previous agency partners will be fully transitioned to Publicis Groupe by the end of the first quarter of 2017, except for WME/IMG, which will continue working on sponsorship-related activities, such as the Army-Navy Game presented by USAA.

USAA began working with MullenLowe in March after it parted ways with former agency partner Campbell-Ewald because of a scandal related to a racist memo. MullenLowe and Campbell-Ewald are both part of Interpublic Group, and after the insurance and financial company dropped Campbell-Ewald, IPG said in a statement that it planned “to transition our USAA team into a standalone, purpose-built entity over the next few months.”

Though IPG said it would create a standalone entity, USAA said it had not signed an agreement with IPG regarding the work terminated with Campbell Ewald and said it was working with IPG on a transition plan as it searches for a new shop. IPG’s Initiative was the media agency on the account, Fleishman Hillard previously handled PR and Merkle worked on USAA’s social business.

Mr. Adams said all of the former agencies “have done a great job in the past,” but the company has to “reorganize for the future and put a premium on integration.”

“We thank USAA for the opportunity over the past eight years to help their members experience the benefits of financial readiness,” said IPG in a statement. “IPG employees across this country have felt pride in sharing the stories of military members and their families with the rest of America and in seeing USAA grow their membership base by over 50% during this time.”

Representatives from MullenLowe, Initiative, Merkle and FleishmanHillard were not immediately available for comment.

13350: Toyota Drives Stereotypes.

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed toward this Toyota commercial accelerating cultural cluelessness. In the spot, parents drop off their White kids for extracurricular practice sessions at upscale facilities including a horse riding academy, swimming pool and baseball field—however, the Black kid is dropped off at a gritty boxing gym by his “bro” versus Moms or Pops. Twitter comments have noted the stereotypes. Not sure which White advertising agency is responsible for this latest example of Total Toyota total bullshit. Hey, at least the Black kid wasn’t driven to the slave plantation.

13017: Toyota Totaled.

Wow, maybe the Total Toyota trash ain’t too terrible after all. This RAV4 Hybrid campaign from Toyota’s Black advertising agency is a comedic car wreck. It’s impossible to identify a single funny moment among Teachers Lounge, Dodgeball, High Price, Maintenance, Why Wouldn’t Ya, Cost Savings, Styling and Mileage.

12953: Global Total Toyota…?

Thought Toyota commercials in the U.S. were bad? Check out what’s playing in South Africa.

12742: Let’s Not Go Places.

Toyota Global Head of Communications Julie Hamp resigned after being arrested for allegedly importing drugs into Japan. Hey, Hamp, you should be concentrating on importing cars versus controlled substances. And what exotic drugs inspired the creative teams responsible for the Total Toyota bullshit campaign that included depicting a former slave plantation?

Toyota’s Communications Chief Resigns Following Arrest

Police Said Julie Hamp Allegedly Imported a Controlled Drug into Japan

Toyota Motor Corp. said Julie Hamp, its first female managing officer, resigned the position after her arrest last month for allegedly importing drugs into Japan.

Toyota accepted the resignation “after considering the concerns and inconvenience that recent events have caused our stakeholders,” the Toyota City, Japan-based company said on its website. Hamp, 55, had been named the global head of communications for the world’s largest carmaker in April.

Hamp’s resignation comes after President Akio Toyoda called a press conference one day after her June 18 arrest to express confidence that she hadn’t intentionally broken Japanese law. The company had pointed to Hamp’s appointment as evidence that it was diversifying its executive ranks, which is predominantly comprised of Japanese men.

Tokyo metropolitan police arrested Hamp on suspicion she had imported the pain medication oxycodone, police spokesmen have said, asking not to be named in accordance with its policy. She joined the company in June 2012 from PepsiCo Inc., where she was a senior vice president, and worked previously for General Motors Corp.

Oxycodone is designated as a narcotic in Japan and users need advance permission from the health and welfare ministry before bringing it into the country, according to the Narcotics Control Department.

--Bloomberg News--

12621: Total Toyota Totally Terrible.

MediaPost published a piece titled, “Toyota’s T2 Says Bye-Bye To General Market”—and the story should have also said hello to really shitty advertising concepts.

12531: Total Toyota Trash.

Is this another sad example of Total Toyota at work? It appears that the White advertising agency produces TV commercials showing Black characters meeting B.B. King, while the Black shop is relegated to creating a print ad showing a sistah rolling through the hood.

12524: BHM 2015—Toyota.

Well, at least Toyota didn’t salute Black History Month with B.B. King on a slave plantation.

12217: Total Toyota Recall.

Reuters reported Toyota is recalling about 362,000 Camry vehicles worldwide due to production defects. Hey, while they’re at it, the automaker should also recall the Total Toyota initiative, which has clearly displayed serious production defects.

Toyota to recall nearly 362K Camrys

By Reuters

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday it would recall a combined 361,800 vehicles globally, including the Camry sedan, covering three separate defects.

Subject to the recalls are 170,000 Camrys to fix a faulty ball joint that could cause a loss of control of the vehicle. Europe accounts for the majority with about 120,000 vehicles, followed by 40,000 in Japan, Toyota said.

Another recall covers 105,800 Hiace, Regius Ace and Dyna models, mainly in Japan, to replace the fuel pipe. The third recall is for 86,000 Crown and Crown Majesta models in Japan to replace the outer seat belt assemblies.

Toyota said it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths from the three recalls.

12186: Attention, Total Toyota.

The Associated Press reported the Virginia estate of President James Madison will be refurbished, including the rebuilding of original slave quarters. Once completed, Saatchi & Saatchi’s got dibs on producing a new Toyota Camry commercial at the site as an extension of the Total Toyota initiative.

Slave quarters to be rebuilt at Madison’s Va. Home

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homes of slaves who served President James Madison at his Montpelier estate in Virginia will be rebuilt for the first time over the next five years, along with other refurbishments to the home of one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, thanks to a $10 million gift announced Saturday.

David Rubenstein, a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff, pledged the $3.5 million needed to rebuild the slave quarters next to the mansion in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another $6.5 million will be devoted to refurnishing parts of the home where Madison drafted ideas that would become the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

After widow Dolley Madison sold the estate in 1844, many family belongings were dispersed or sold, leaving some rooms mostly empty of period furnishings after the estate opened to visitors in 1987. Now, curators hope to recover or borrow artifacts from the fourth president’s family life to bring the estate back to life, said Montpelier Foundation President and CEO Kat Imhoff.

Rubenstein told The Associated Press he wanted to help make the estate more authentic. Montpelier could draw more visitors to learn about history, he said, if the house is fully restored and its slave quarters built out. It currently draws about 125,000 visitors a year. Last year, Rubenstein gave funds to recreate slave quarters on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation.

“It’s this dichotomy. You have people who were extraordinarily intelligent, well-informed, educated; they created this incredible country — Jefferson, Washington, Madison — yet they lived with this system of slavery. Jefferson, Washington and Madison all abhorred slavery, but they didn’t do, they couldn’t do much about it,” he said. “We shouldn’t deify our Founding Fathers without recognizing that they did participate in a system that had its terrible flaws.”

The donation marks a trifecta of gifts totaling $30 million to projects at Virginia’s oldest presidential sites. Last year Rubenstein gave $10 million gifts to both Jefferson’s Monticello estate and George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon.

Recreating Montpelier’s South Yard, where domestic slaves lived, as well as the basement areas of the mansion where they worked, will help tell a fuller version of history, Imhoff said.

“For folks that have been coming to any of these presidential sites, the fact that we’re bringing this complete American story back into the landscape I think is very important,” she said. “It is challenging, but I also think it’s that wonderful tension that we as Americans are embracing, that this is our history, that making the invisible visible is very important to us as a nation, and it will make a stronger American story.”

The slave quarters at Montpelier were cleared away 165 years ago and planted over with grass, but the site has not been disturbed since. Archaeologists plan to excavate the South Yard in public view to recover remnants of slave life to help illustrate new stories.

One of the slaves who lived in a cramped dwelling was Paul Jennings. He was born at Montpelier in 1799, and at the age of 10 moved with the Madisons to serve in the White House. He later wrote a book about his experience, which is considered the first White House memoir. Jennings recalled helping Dolley Madison save curtains, silver, documents and a famous portrait of George Washington when the British burned the White House in 1814.

Jennings returned to Montpelier as Madison’s personal manservant. After Madison’s death, Jennings purchased his freedom and moved to Washington.

Matt Reeves, Montpelier’s director of archaeology, said his team can recreate the slave quarters close to their original construction through research from documents and excavations.

“By bringing the slave quarters back, what we’re able to do is tell the stories of the slave families that lived here and tell their more personal stories that allow visitors to imagine the enslaved community not as just workers, but as people, as mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles,” Reeves said.

Visitors now get an authentic experience at the front of the mansion and see the home inside as it was when Madison lived there, after a major $25 million architectural restoration completed in 2008, Reeves said. But as visitors leave the back porch, they see a 20th-century landscape of grass and trees, void of any evidence of the plantation where more than 100 slaves lived.

“It’s really going to bring this larger community back to life,” Reeves said. “It will really help define Mr. Madison as who he was — as a Virginia planter, as a slave owner.”

12167: Trashing Total Toyota.

Caught three Camry commercials that are presumably part of the inaugural Total Toyota campaign.

The Bucket List Trip appears to be targeting Whites and maybe baby boomers, as a son and father (?) drive through a predominately White version of New Orleans.

The Fix fixates on the Asian market, taking a Jackie Chan-action-adventure approach to chasing down an ice cream truck for one’s pregnant wife.

Time to Celebrate caters to Latinos, with a husband celebrating his wife’s MBA (because education is so important to Latinos!) by staging an after-hours joyride through a carnival. Oh, how those Latinos love to break the law.

It’s still totally unclear how the minority agencies collaborated with the lead White agency—Saatchi & Saatchi—to create this shit. Across the board, it looks like Whites selected the talent. The film quality is consistent, indicating a single director and/or production house may have handled everything.

Exactly how does everyone—from agencies to clients to dealers to consumers—benefit from Total Toyota? Right now, things smell like total bullshit.

12135: Bicultural Cluelessness.

OMG, there’s a new post at The Big Tent—which is not-so-big anymore. Marketers: Bicultural Hispanics Need to be Heard, So Give Them a Voice by Pulpo Media CMO Maria Lopez-Knowles opines, “Marketers need to understand the dynamics at play with bicultural audiences, and how communications can be interpreted differently in Hispanic vs. U.S. ‘general market’ cultures.” Good luck making it happen when there already aren’t enough crumbs to begin with—and schemes like Total Toyota are run by biculturally-clueless White people.

12134: Total Toyota Promotes Slavery…?

Comments left for the new Total Toyota campaign post claim that the second spot in the series—“Bride Breakout”—was shot at a former slave plantation in Louisiana. Nice. Brings added meaning to the tagline, “Let’s Go Places.” Not sure why this commercial might be considered cross-cultural or multicultural, as the cast is totally White, save for a single Black man as a background extra. The actor, however, probably played a larger role in the production than the minority agencies comprising Total Toyota.

12132: Total Toyota Bullshit.

Advertising Age reported on the new campaign created by Total Toyota, the coalition of the automaker’s White agency and minority agencies. As previously stated, Total Toyota sounds like total bullshit. The new campaign features two spots, and the one posted by Ad Age—“Guitar”—shows Saatchi & Saatchi’s name on the slate. Did all five agencies collaborate to create the commercial? If so, the cross-cultural cluster fuck failed, as the advertisement is a contrived piece of garbage. Bringing in B.B. King is about as tired as it gets. It would be interesting to learn how the minority agencies are being compensated—that is, how the crumbs are being distributed—in this Total Toyota scheme. Of course, don’t count on receiving the total truth regarding such details.

Toyota Breaks First Work From Multicultural Marketing Team

Effort from Total Toyota Group Themed ‘One Bold Choice Leads to Another’

By Max Willens

The first campaign created by Toyota Total, the automaker’s multicultural marketing team, will break this weekend on some of the most mainstream programming around: NFL football.

Entitled “One Bold Choice Leads to Another,” the multimedia push for the 2015 Toyota Camry will launch with two 30-second spots airing on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” telecast. The effort, which Toyota said is aimed at the “transcultural mainstream,” will run through March 2015.

Comprised of five agencies – Toyota’s agency of record, Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, plus Burrell Communications, Conill, InterTrend Communications and Zenith – Total Toyota unites the automaker’s multicultural marketing initiatives under one umbrella. Toyota’s Camry is the nation’s best-selling car and the automaker claims Toyota is the No. 1 auto brand among Hispanics, African- and Asian-Americans.

A total of six spots will air over the course of the campaign, which also features print and radio elements, as well as some interactive and experiential programs designed to present the car to audiences that are much smaller and more specific than the mass viewership tuning in for Sunday night’s game.

One includes sponsorship of the DramaFever Awards. DramaFever is a video-streaming site that specializes in international TV, including South Korean teenage dramas and Spanish-language telenovelas. In addition to sponsorship of the Awards themselves, Camry will sponsor a branded “Bold and Beautiful” award. Another planned facet of the campaign is a social media-oriented push in which a chef will visit restaurants and share recipes while getting fans to share their own.

Prior campaigns have centered on defying people’s expectations of Camry, which some see as a stable, but slightly bland and unexciting car. In 2013, Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles created a kind of stunt course at a Six Flags location then drove visitors through them at high speeds in the Camry.

The Camry has been the top-selling car in the U.S. for more than a decade, and its sales continue to tick up. Toyota sold 334,978 Camrys through the first nine months of the year, an increase of 5% from the previous year, according to the Automotive News Data Center.