Brand: Toyota Tacoma (Toyota)
Execution: TV
Target: Young Men
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
The spot opens up showing a World of Warcraft game screen with three players.  They are chatting as they might do during a game session for this massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).   The three are preparing to battle a dragon.  The first says, “I’ve gone ahead and equipped my Epic Axe.”  The second, (a female avatar but a male voice) replies, “switching to explosive arrows.”  The third says, “Yeah, I’m gonna equip myself with a little – uh – FOUR WHEELS OF FURY!!”  and suddenly his character is inside an animated Toyota Tacoma.  “No Way,” the first character says.  “There’s no trucks in World of Warcraft,” the second complains.  The character drives forward in the Toyota until he confronts the dragon, saying “let’s do this!”  The dragon swallows the Toyota Tacoma and the other two characters groan.  A moment later the dragon clutches his chest and the Tacoma bursts forth from the monster’s chest as it collapses.  The dragon’s heart is in the flatbed of the pickup.  “Did you see me lay down the Law?” the character in the Tacoma gloats, “I am the lawgiver!”  The spot ends with the Tacoma name and the Toyota Trucks logo as a character says, “I gotta get one of those.”

What Works:
This brilliant “product as hero” spot for Toyota Tacoma builds exceptionally well on a well-established campaign displaying Toyota Tacoma’s durability in cleverly imagined fantasy situations including being hit by a meteor, attacked by the Loch Ness Monster and crushed by a robot at a monster truck rally.  These spots all looked extremely realistic and gave the Toyota Tacoma a sense of being larger than life.

This new spot cleverly reverses the paradigm, putting the Tacoma into the wildly popular World of Warcraft backdrop.  Toyota shows an understanding for the environment as the action parodies real gamers realistically.  The result in the game, as in the other spots, is that the Toyota Tacoma emerges unscathed.

This interesting and clever spot will be much more arresting to the young male demographic Toyota is seeking because of its portrayal of the in-game environment of World of Warcraft.  The brand positioning is consistent with earlier executions and the pitch builds on the establishing work of the earlier spots.  Toyota again shows (as it has done consistently with the marketing for the Scion) that it understands new media environments.

What Doesn’t:
We don’t see many weaknesses in this advertising from Toyota, but it is important that Toyota continue the “fantasy tough” campaign with the elegance and flair observed in this and previous spots.

Branding Bottom Line:
Toyota finally slays the beast – but it’s not GM.

Subject: NYU extends its brand with full campus in Abu Dhabi
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri

NYU announced today finalization of an agreement first reported in August with the government of Abu Dhabi to open a full-fledged liberal arts campus in the Middle Eastern kingdom. NYU President John Sexton calls the campus, “the first comprehensive liberal arts campus to be operated abroad by a major U.S. research university,” commenting also that, “the costs, planning, design, building and all expenses related to the operation of NYU Abu Dhabi will be assumed by the government of Abu Dhabi.

This is an astonishing move for an elite academic institution, particularly given some of the natural concerns that arise from the funding plan for the campus (see below). It is, however, a logical move for NYU given the myriad troubles that current immigration policy has given U.S. research universities attracting both overseas students and researchers, particularly from the Middle East and North Africa. Many U.S. universities operate campuses abroad, primarily to allow their U.S. based students to study abroad and create centers of expertise in areas that make sense for these. The NYU move is revolutionary because it will fully extend the brand to another country

This also creates real danger for the NYU brand, which will for the first time not be entirely in the hands of the U.S. administration. Although the program will be created entirely by NYU, relying entirely on funding from a single source – an overseas government at that – creates the long-term potential for divergent interests between NYU and the government of Abu Dhabi.

In branding terms, NYU is creating a line-extension (although it could be argued that they’re simply increasing distribution for their current brand) by creating a campus with an entirely different business model in Abu Dhabi. If this new campus fails to have the same academic rigor or intellectual freedom as NYU in New York, it will hurt the brand for NYU. But globalization is a natural step for strong U.S. educational brands and NYU is aggressively pursuing this goal.

Disclosure – I am on the Adjunct Faculty of NYU – but I was in no way involved with creating plans for the Abu Dhabi campus.

Brand: Dove
Execution: Cause Marketing Viral Video
Target: Mothers with young daughters
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
On this viral video launched in the U.K., a series of rapid images from the fashion and beauty press and the media assaults the viewer. Intercut with these stills, we also see a woman on a scale gaining and losing weight rapidly and repeatedly. The spot concludes with a shot of schoolgirls walking across a street and a message saying, “Talk to your doctor before the beauty industry does.” The branding is for the Dove self-esteem fund.

What Works:
In some ways, we like Onslaught – the evolution of the Campaign for Real Beauty – better than the original. By graphically showing us the effect of glamorized representations of beauty on young girls, Dove and the Campaign for Real Beauty get to the heart of the problem with the beauty industry today – that it is based on a rejection of one’s one body and an acceptance of unrealistic standards as the beauty ideal. The results are well-documented, from low self-esteem to anorexia and bulimia. This issue has gained momentum in the time since the original Campaign for Real Beauty was launched as fashion runways in Spain and other countries have banned models who are unhealthily thin.

Dove does a very good job of stepping back to the front of the line with the Onslaught viral video. This U.K. viral execution of Onslaught is most likely being used to test the waters for a larger global launch of the new campaign. It fits perfectly with the original branding strategy behind the Campaign for Real Beauty and will help Dove continue to solidify its hold on the moral center of the cultural debate over beauty standards.

What Doesn’t:
Dove may sadly underestimate the overall effect of this campaign on its business strategy and its brands. While the specific Dove brands which sponsor the campaign for real beauty may mirror its philosophy, Dove is still indisputably a beauty company. Many of the products the company makes fall into the category that the Campaign for Real Beauty is implicitly criticizing. They are not the worst offenders, but products meant to make you look younger, firmer or healthier all capitalize on low self-esteem and rest on dubious scientific ground. Dove should consider selling off lines which don’t meet the criteria for this campaign, and dedicating the company to products which fit the new brand promise.

Branding Bottom Line:
Brilliant campaign could save the brand and kill the company.