Watch Toyota’s last-minute Super Bowl ad for Tacoma

Less than a month before the Feb. 11 Super Bowl, Toyota said it would sit out the game for the second straight year, despite inking a pricey NFL sponsorship just a few months earlier. But soon after that Jan. 16 announcement, the automaker got a call from CBS, which pitched Toyota on buying some last-minute in-game inventory. And the automaker bit, seizing on the opportunity to plug its 2024 Tacoma mid-sized pickup with a campaign already in development. “Although it wasn't originally part of the media plan, we thought what a great way to tell an incredible story about Tacoma and really amplify the comprehensive presence we're gonna have at the Super Bowl on site,” Mike Tripp, group VP of Toyota Marketing for Toyota Motor North America, said in an interview this week, explaining the change of heart. More news: Ad Age’s guide to the 2024 Super Bowl The 30-second spot, which will run in the third quarter, was made public today. It shows Tacoma passengers yelling and screaming while clutching the passenger side handle as the truck rumbles and speeds through off-road terrain. Called “Dareful Handle,” the ad presents alternative names for the handle—such as the “shut the front door” and “woah, woah, woah, woah, woah” handle—in an attempt to portray the thrill of riding in the Tacoma, which has undergone a redesign with standard features such as a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Saatchi & Saatchi handled the ad in partnership with Le Truc, which is Publicis Groupe’s creative collective. It was directed by Tarsem Singh. Toyota had originally planned to begin running the ad this week, as part of its larger “More Power for More Play” Tacoma campaign. When the Super Bowl opportunity came up, Tripp said the marketing team pivoted, deciding within 24 hours to run it in the game. The ad “wasn't created for the Super Bowl,” he said. “But it is not the only ad that we’ve created that I think is Super Bowl-worthy,” no matter where it runs. When it set out to create the campaign, Toyota considered “how we can tell a story about how exciting this truck is, what it’s capable of,” Tripp said. “And there’s no possible way we could take any one element to tell the story in a way that we thought was really true to the truck as much as showing how people were acting what they do in the truck.” Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here Singh—who has directed other Super Bowl ads including Toyota’s 2021 ad about Paralympian Jessica Long—in a statement about this year’s spot said, “I thought we would need a lot of acting but the Tacoma delivered on such a level that all the reactions are pretty much live.” Toyota is also running a spot during Univision’s Spanish-language broadcast of the game with an ad from Conill and directed by Goh Iromoto. It joins other automakers such as Nissan and Audi that are using the Univision telecast to reach Hispanic buyers, who continue to grow in importance for auto brands. Toyota in its CBS spot also uses Spanish, with one passenger referring to the handle as the “no me gusta” handle. Tacoma “has historically done extremely well with [the] Hispanic audience,” Tripp said. The nameplate now gets 27% of its sales from Hispanic buyers but the goal is to move that into the “low 30s,” he said. Toyota is also leveraging its status as an NFL sponsor, which gives it rights to use NFL trademarks. The ad, for instance, ends with the Super Bowl LVIII logo, noting Toyota is an “official partner” of the game. Toyota is also using its NFL clout in the ground in Las Vegas, including sponsoring the NFL’s fan festival hosted at Mandalay Bay that started Wednesday and will run through Saturday. The automaker also recently signed San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and ex-NFL Giant Eli Manning as national endorsers.

Watch Toyota’s last-minute Super Bowl ad for Tacoma

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