A group for everything under the sun…
These days, you can find a Facebook group (or six) for just about everything under the sun. Want proof? Do a quick search through the groups section for “Saved by Zero” and you’ll find nothing short of 11 different groups dedicated to Toyota’s newest television commercial touting their extended 0% financing program. While most advertisers pray for their work to “go viral” (I shudder at the phrase), I don’t think this is what Toyota’s agency (Saatchi?) had in mind.
The backlash against this diminuative little piece of film is nothing shy of impressive. The largest of the Facebook hate-groups has swelled to more than two thousand members in only ten days. But the discussions don’t end on Facebook - in fact the social community is perhaps just the tip of the spear. Enraged (and rarely do I use that word to describe viewers of a TV commercial) viewers are coming out of the woodwork in communities of every type imaginable across the web.
Rants can be found on CraigsList (more than one), on sports forums, on gambling sites, and even on Esquire’s website. Major news sites including Forbes have picked up on the story. Someone even went so far as to create a petition to have the ad pulled.
I think we can safely say that this effort has “gone viral”. But perhaps not in the manner that anyone would have hoped for. In fact, I can’t imagine that anyone expected too much of this ad at all. At a glance, it just another mediocre-at-best car advertisment screaming about finance rates on a dozen models - something we’ve all heard thousands of times by now, unfortunately.
But tick people off just enough and you’ll find exactly how powerful an outlet the web can be. People who use the web to foster any number of diverse interests have found common ground on this one, and they’re not going quietly into the night this time. Sure, plenty of ads have been pulled because they outraged this group of fanatics or that one, but can anyone else remember a commercial that’s been pulled - not that this one has…yet - because it was just plain bad? Keep an eye out. This could set an unusual precedent.
Oh, and if you haven’t seen the spot yet, here it is:
Tags: Saved by Zero, The Fixx, Toyota
