Watching this commercial on TV about the Toyota Prius
Toyota is clearly targeting the segment of environmentally-conscious adults (perhaps with a family) that want to do their part in helping the environment as well as saving money on exploding gas prices. I believe they targeted the right segment because of the current economic and social trends in the industry’s macro-environmental factors – with today’s ridiculous-rising gas prices, as well as current social trends of protecting the environment.
Price: starting at $23,050 MSRP (3rd gen Toyota Prius)
The commercial is definitely effective in my opinion, because it uses mostly affective and behavioral components when the car is seen to be driven down the road, also using “happy” music and a fantasy-like nature scenery in the background to evoke positive emotions associated with the environment. They also touched up with a bit of cognitive component when the ad mentioned that the driver gets “more power and more space; the world gets fewer smog-forming emissions.”
This is considered smart advertising because they are successful associated their brand with environmentalism, and immediately put themselves in the evoked set of the consumer’s mind whenever they think about hybrid or environmentally friendly cars.
To be fair, my family definitely does have some brand loyalty towards Toyota though, owning all but one Toyota car at our household (around 5 or 6 Toyota’s in total, including past vehicles).
But of course, even Toyota has had its fair share of faults (notable ones, in this case)…
^ referring to its massive vehicle recalls/accelerator issues in 2009-10. (I found this one quite funny actually)