Toyota: Your Auto-Biography on Facebook

Every person has his or her personal story, and so does every vehicle. Toyota launched a lovely “Auto-Biography” campaign on Facebook, encouraging its fans to “collect and showcase the most memorable moments” about their cars with the rest of the world.

The campaign, created by the Saatchi & Saatchi agency, was started on July 2, and so far it has generated over 550 stories from auto-owners, and the number of them is constantly growing. To contribute to the movement, users are to enter the information on their model, year, and number of miles on the car and then tell one memorable experience they had in relation of the vehicle. The aim of the project is to remind consumers of all the positive emotions, fun and pleasure, which driving a car provides, and to prove that despite the recalls due to sticking accelerator pedals, which were made earlier this year, Toyota still has a plenty of loyal consumers.

Under the current Auto-Biography campaign, the auto manufacturer also released eight spots on Facebook and YouTube, which are showcasing people, who tell inspiring or just entertaining stories about their Toyota models. Toyota used these ‘life-stories’ to shoot national and local TV ads for the US, as well as to develop prints and digital banner ads on popular social platforms including Facebook, AOL, Yahoo, Digg and more.

Two themes that were genuine and resonated were the ‘first time buyer’-theme for Corolla and the ‘family pass along’-theme with Camry. We spent considerable time finding those first time Corolla intenders and these Camry family stories. Certainly some stories are more compelling than others and we ultimately chose these,” said Bob Zeinstra, national manager of advertising and strategic planning for Toyota Motor Sales, commenting on the videos.

The rest of the videos can be watched here.