Advertising automobiles is a finicky business. Get it wrong and the company takes a huge hit. Get it right and you can sell a turd without polishing it first. Anyone who was paying any attention to car advertisements in the 1990’s knows from the first notes that if you heard Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People”, you were watching a Toyota ad. The song is catchy, the cars happy little sewing machines that did their job well enough. Nothing wrong with that. The ads were the product of Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, who for years did wonderful work hawking Camrys, Celicas and Toyota trucks.
This television promotion used to introduce the 1998 Corolla almost ended the partnership. Yeah, “Everyday People” is playing, and yeah, the Corolla is the focus of commercial’s end, but that’s about the last bit of reference to a car you’ll find here. Nothing moves little commuter cars quite like a spring in your step and something added to your smoothie in a town full of retro clichés. Watch the ad…you’ll see what I mean.
Click play below and see if you can figure out what “apple juice” was code for…
goddamn that was utterly sickening…..appropriate , then, for a Toymota….the next person who tells me how reliable Toyotas are runs the risk of a punch upside the head….they’ve told people who know nothing about cars that Toyota = reliable for so long that everybody believes it. My ex and her brother were convinced….even though they had constant breakdowns and repairs….horrible, tinny, crappy cars with no soul….this advert sums them up perfectly. Worst in the world – agreed.
A Toyota iron block engine from the 80’s/90’s and a manual transmission definitely had “Soul” … or are you thinking the Iron Duke Celebrity and HSC Tempo had soul? IMO it’s when Toyota decided they needed to be the biggest auto maker in the world that quality took a huge hit. Now they make either outdated airbag transportation modules or overly complicated hybrid transportation pods. Neither of which have any soul.
Agreed. I had an ’82 corolla sr5 lift back with the 3TC engine & 5 speed. Power brakes & A/C but no power steering. Longitudinal 4 cyl engine & RWD. Bought the car in ’86 with 50-60k miles. Sold it with well over 115 k in ’93. I swear that thing was running stronger at the end than at the beginning. It NEVER left me stranded. The early Lexus LS 400s and the Camrys through the early 90s were also solid. The early to mid-80s Supras (the angular ones) were also great. Toyota slipped a lot when they tried to become the world’s biggest automaker.
I have had the Chevy version of the exact car from the ad as my backup car/winter beater for about 10 years now. Chevy ‘version’ is a bit much, it is essentially a Toyota Corolla with a bowtie on the front. I will agree that it is a rattly, noisy, cheap in every way, oil burning little turd that has door handles that break off every six months, however *puts helmet on* it has never broken down or refused to start, or had anything break that has to do with the car being able to get down the road. It’s one reliable little bastard.
Are you sure that wasn’t an ad for apple juice? I think the director’s wife just left her car out where they were going to dance.
Holy shit…LOL…
This is nothing compared to those freaking hamster ads for the Kia Soulless. Not only are those terrible, but many of them border into blatant racism.
the color!