Weird Unofficial Toyota Ads: "Well, at least he drives a Prius"

ok creative designers at toyota:
how about we not degrade women with every single one of these ads???

making women the culprit of ambiguous crimes, all "towards" men.
the prostitute.
the dead body.
the cheating in the front yard.
(or the skanky daughter, take your pick).

disgusting.
absolutely disgusting.

Toyota has alot of environmental ads going, like the ones in movie theaters that surprisingly never show a car, but is about environmentalism. They have a good message tho.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bknyIKeGpHA

I think this part of their ad campaign is what is putting them at the top of the auto corporations

Whoa Stephanie, you see the world through a certain lens and it shows.

It could equally be said that the killer is a man, the john is a man, and the crazy boyfriend / marriage breaker is a man. Is that sexism against men?

Men are constantly shown as criminals and violent, do you complain about that too or are you just looking to be offended by ways women are portrayed?

Why are carmakers portraying hybrid drivers to be sociopaths or just plain weird? Another example is the Chevy commercial where a guy lets his dog lick his feet to save water, and he also drives a Chevy Volt.

Why are carmakers portraying hybrid drivers to be sociopaths or just plain weird? Another example is the Chevy commercial where a guy lets his dog lick his feet to save water, and he also drives a Chevy Volt.

Heh. It seems like bad marketing IMO. I guess they are catering to the 10% of Americans in prison... I think it's funny that GTA4 has a Prius like car in it and that Rock Star has made funny videos. I guess I would have preferred Toyota to spend a little money and update the body of the Prius, or spent the money on getting their next Hybrid to market. This campaign just seems counter productive. They could have just shown Al Gores kids speeding ticket to get the same message across... I can understand the want to make an Anit-goodie-goodie Prius campaign... but this one sucks.

Well it wasn't Toyota,

And these are... you know. Not good for sales, not good for green messaging... what's the word... man I wish there was a copywriter around. If they aren't good they must be.. wait a minute.. no.. oh right! Bad! They're bad. They are just bad.

And they also denigrate men!!! We are murderers, solicitors, and possibly cuckolds and adulterer's?

Who is that dude the gardener? Please...

I would just like to point out the ads say "Unofficial" which would, and I'm only guessing, Toyota had nothing to do with them. If I'm right, it would appear that these satirical ad's have baffled the four previous commentors.

The murder is realistic. The Prius could sneak along very quietly in elec. mode, making for a good "crime car." Plus, you could speed away in the commuter/eco vehicle lane on the highway. Thanks Toyota, I'll be sure to mention your influence at the trial.

I think it's a photo essay, but out of order. Man catches wife cheating with gardener, man kills one or both of them, then is free to date young hussies. With Prius, you don't need a Tesla to have a mid-life crisis.

Makes me want to go out and buy a Prius since I identify with the guy in the first one. Now, if I could just figure out how lame I'd look driving one...

"Men" and "women" are not groups. They are collections of individuals. What one person does shouldn't reflect on others who share its chromosomes or skin color or whatever.

Those who constantly talk about groups wouldn't want others to see them as unimportant parts of a larger group, I bet.

These are defintely OFFICIAL Toyota ads. If you look at Toyota's literature (website, brochures, etc.) they are all symptomatic of the same degrading atitudes toward women. Look at their tag line, "Moving Forward" if that's not clearly sexual I don't know what is. Also, I realize the argument has been made that these ads were created by some ad guy with Photoshop and a sense of humor BUT how can this be when 1.Photoshop is very hard to use and these pictures don't look composited at all (especially the dead body one) AND 2. who has time to manipulate ads (or go out and shoot fake ads) these day?
We definitely need to take action against these official ads by Toyota. I think we should start writing letters and boycotting, maybe we should think about protesting at their headquarters.
So Stephanie, I'm with you.

- Josh

Josh,

;)

"making women the culprit of ambiguous crimes, all "towards" men.
the prostitute.
the dead body."

How do you know the dead body is a woman? you have x-ray vision?

From what I can see from the last one, the man in the robe's wife is making out with his landscaper, but it's okay that he's an inadequate husband and/or has an unfaithful wife, because he drive a Prius?

Actually if you look real close at the bottom one it says at least SHE drives a Prius.

Woman as passive sexualized victim man as culprit. It certainly draws on some problematic stereotypes and it would be better if it didn’t. It do like it though. The message that a car can’t make you a good person but it can help is a nice one.

1) I think these are hysterical.

2) In Weeds, Nancy buys a prius and then proceeds to participate in a drive-by in it...prompting the gangsta-thug she's working with to buy all his guys priuses (prii?) because they're quiet and you can sneak up on people.

If I were nefarious in any way at all, I'd totally buy a prius.

It's satire, people. Do any of you know what that is? They are pointing out that the people are bad, there is a murderer, prostitute, "John", and an adulterer. The only saving grace is that particular person owns a Prius so the individual isn't ALL bad. Do yourselves a favor, read "A Modest Proposal". If it angers you, then you've missed the point and it will be clear as to why you can't enjoy the advertisements above.

It is supposed to be absurd.

let's be honest: you can't tell but there are certainly negative messages being sent all over the place here.

what happens in these ads is a just a little roleplay:
women as prostitutes, cheaters, skanks, corpses (though in this case it's sexually ambiguous, it doesn't take a genius to "ASSUME" who the victim might be).

and in the process of all these advertising fun and games, guess what happens again?

the man is perceived as doing something wrong himself, but he has a tangible excuse: at least he drives a prius.
the man is being hurt by the evil wife, taking fruit in the garden, AGAIN.

i feel that the injustice here crosses gender lines---if you are a man and you approve of this roleplay, you are equally as guilty. this is gross, this is constant. this is enough of this.

What we have here is a lot of people who take life a bit too seriously. Sadly, I think all of you miss the point of the ads. Toyota is simply implying in the ads that the Prius is not just for treehuggers. From what happened with Al Gore's son, you can get ticketed for speeding in a Prius. And unfortunately, the people depicted in these ads portray flawed individuals who will buy the Prius.

These are absolutely hysterical. some of the best ads I've seen in a while, really.

Just one graphic designer's point of view.

to those that commented to take action against these "official" toyota ads:

AutoblogGreen has been told by Toyota that they are not official, but "the work of an art director who is apparently trying to promote himself."

did you not read this? claiming photoshop is hard to use is just ludicrious. obviously this is the work of a photo major with a sense of humor. photoshop is easy once you get the hang of it, by the way. the hardest part would be staging the photos. adding a little text is nothing.

relax people, it's all in good fun

I'm an artist who works for a large company and I got to tell you... if you're an artist photoshop is a piece of cake to use and the same crap everyday of creating for the boss can get boring. I'm sure it was just some dude who broke up with a girlfriend who drove a prius or something having some fun venting his anger and getting a laugh at work. And as far as degrading women... come on its not 1920 we're all liberated and its just creative expression no need to read so into it.

(I believe that the poster who commented on the difficulty of photoshop was being facetious.)

Love it. It is quite obvious they are NOT from Toyota. They are very funny.

These ads are not saying anything bad about men or women as a group. They are pointing out how evil prius owners are. That's why I drive a honda civic hybrid instead.

Hey stephanie, wanna hook up babe?

anyone see the Ford Sport Ka commercials from Europe that never aired in the U.S.? You know, the ones where the car bites the head off the cat and kills a couple birds?

Or how about the Volkswagen one in which an arab man drives it to a townsquare and sets off a car bomb?

those were funny too.

To the person that men or women are not groups, but rather are collections of individuals... from dictionary.com....

group - noun: 1. any collection or assemblage or persons or things 2. a number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way

Toe-may-toe / toe-mah-toe...

Must everone get offended at everything these days? It's a simple satire, meant to draw people's attention. No, they're probably not what you would term "politically correct", but who cares? Too many people are too worried abouts saying something that's going to offend someone else.

A different interpretation:

The corpse a male barber who sold some bad shampoo. The murderer kept the head so he could work on his new rug.

The man is the son of the PC guy in the Apple ads. He is just leaving the computer store with his new PC. She is the mother of the Mac guy in the Apple ads. She's trying to tell him how great her new Air Book is.

The homeowner is mad because the girl who was cutting the lawn didn't turn off the gas lawn mower before making out with the paper boy. The homeowner still gets the paper (bad) and does not have prairie grass covering his lawn (bad), but at least he drives a Prius.

lol at Roland.

Ps - I put the dead-guy one as my wallpaper on my computer (I write suspense novels) and when it's blown up it's very obvious that those are not women's shoes on the body. So that's man on man violence, and centuries of cultural programming have told us all that behavior of that nature is OK ;-)

"To the person that men or women are not groups, but rather are collections of individuals... from dictionary.com....

group - noun: 1. any collection or assemblage or persons or things 2. a number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way

Toe-may-toe / toe-mah-toe..."

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I mean that "women" or "man" or "blacks" or "gays" or whatever are not a monolithic entity, and that it's not useful to consider them as such.

ah, sometimes people create sexism and controversy out of nothing.

To those declaring the ads are demeaning to women because the prostitute and daughter (I actually think she is the cheating wife with the gardener, ala desperate housewives) are females. Unless the man driving the prius is gay, ofcourse they will be women. You cant have a male prostitute unless you are going with a gay storyline!

Ads are sometimes supposed to be unusual, witty, and grab attention. Look at whats in 'family' TV shows and movies. All of that is much more edgy than this concept

Hi everyone.
Allow me to clear the air here.

These are my ads, and they were simply meant to be a parody and to have a laugh at print advertising in general.

I had them shot this summer and never really expected more than a few people to see them, other than my friends in the ad business.

As Toyota guessed, I am an Art Director, and yes, these images were meant strictly for self-promotion only, and to spark conversation in general. I in fact never intended for them to be passed around the Internet at all. The person who commented “It's satire, people…. It is supposed to be absurd”, hit the nail on the head.

As for the man/woman debate going around, I never even thought of it. I guess an image after all is subjective and people will see whatever it is they want to see. But in explanation, these images are simply three examples of people doing immoral things, and then, absurdly, letting them off the hook because, hey, they made a wise decision in their choice of transportation.

It’s just supposed to be funny.

I don’t condone murder or prostitution or infidelity.

It’s a joke.

Either way, I’m happy to see they elicited a response from so many. And to those who were offended, I meant no harm and my apologies.

To those who laughed, cheers.

PS. The person in the body bag is me, a man, not a woman. Last time I checked ☺ And you can either spit on these ads or laugh at them again anytime, at davidkrulik.com

David Krulik

I

And - I loved that Volkswagon commercial with the car bomb. I actually did a spit-take when I saw that one. :-D

wow! i cant believe all this people think this ads are real!

THESE ADS ARE FAKE, PEOPLE, COME ON!!!! if they are not fake, then they were done by a joint venture between Ford, GMC and Chrysler.

why is everyone offended by everything? laugh more, its good for you. :D

i am an intelligent, educated woman, and i was not offended by these ads in any way. i doubt that makes me stupid, just secure.

smile!

These are great adds! I do like them. Thank you.

And to those who say:

"come on its not 1920 we're all liberated and its just creative expression no need to read so into it."

and

"Hey stephanie, wanna hook up babe?"

I'm happy sexualization and stereotypes don't happen anymore. Things will be much easier from here on in.

I'm glad to see that so many of you have nothing better to do during your day but comment on these ads!! Are they that important, the point being they are creative and new. How about you stop your trash talking for a minute and go pick up some trash off the side of the highway!

I think the two man in the lowest picture are a couple, and one of them is cheating on his husband with the girl next door. I find it very bigottistical (is that a word?) that heterosexuality is automatically assumed . ;-)

If you take a closer look at the first ad, you can see that the "dead body" is wearing gray slacks and oxford or wingtip shoes. Probably not female, that one. The third ad appears to be the teenage daughter who blew her curfew so completely that it's already morning and her dad is out getting the morning paper in his bathrobe.

i find it very sad that people would get so worked up over something so silly. really, now. get over yourselves, find your sense of humor again, and do something useful. - like smile.

people whisper that the environmental advantages of a hybrid car are lower than the environmental costs - because of additional resources used for the hybrid drive's manufacturing and maintenance.

"people whisper that the environmental advantages of a hybrid car are lower than the environmental costs - because of additional resources used for the hybrid drive's manufacturing and maintenance."

And these people are wrong.

Making the car is just about 10-15% of lifecycle. The rest is fuel. 85-90%. So if a car uses half as much fuel, or three times less, that makes a huge difference.

Batteries and electric motors can be recycled not problem, but you can't produce more oil once it has been burned.

this ads make me float to the top of a car!

Having a women, girl in the picture only prove "they want you to think so" that you attract females with the car. Thats my point of view and can't be agrued.

Has for the dead body... Thats just plain STUPID! Now all the cops, FBI, CIA, etc. will think Toyota Prius drivers are criminals trying to escape without notice... You still might get caught by all the females looking at you (Thats alot of witnesses)

:P

The Prius is really a great marketing performance...
it's just a symbol now that is even used in video games like GTA...
Who could have predicted that some years ago?!!

The dead person is a guy. He is wearing slacks.
And the ads did exactly what they were meant to do. Get attention and get people talking. Duh!