Prius goes plural

It's clever, but as Autoblog contributor Eric Loveday commented, there is something a mite creepy about Toyota's new TV/web campaign for the fast expanding Prius family.

The challenge facing Toyota's agency creatives: show how the former one-hatch-fits-all hybrid platform has turned into a family of Prii that now offers something for everyone.

Enter People Person, a big individual made up of eighteen little sub-individuals. Actually, a grotesque giant with heads for eyes, a torso and bum for a nose and arms for fingers.

Walking out his front door, PP is surprised to discover his "one model of Prius for everyone to share [has] become a family." And as the voiceover introduces the new lineup, PP falls apart as his constituent members disembark him for their new Prius: "There's the original one, the bigger one, the smaller one and the one that plugs in. They're all a little different, just like us."

Advertising being the most self-congratulatory of industries, there's no shortage of online interviews featuring everyone from agency heads to art unit runners explaining in detail how it was done. In short, they managed to choreograph 18 live bodies into a single big one, each making up a different part and moving around his quaint house a PP sets to on his morning routine, cleaning his teeth and the like, readying himself to face the day.

It really is rather clever, and in the tradition of Toyota advertising it's sure to have cost a bomb. And it's not about to lay to rest the industry debate over clever ads: do they win sales and market share for the client, or just Golden Lions at Cannes?

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