Toyota Joy Ride

The background

Toyota wanted to improve their brand consideration and develop awareness for their breadth of vehicles among Pinterest audiences. To create an emotional connection and shift perceptions of the Toyota brand from a practical choice to an emotional choice, we set out to communicate ‘The Joy of Driving’ with a virtual experience that allowed users to imagine life behind the wheel of the Toyota Highlander Hybrid Platinum and Toyota RAV4 TRD Off-Road.

The execution

We created an immersive 360° driving experience accessed via an interactive Pinterest pin that puts users in the driver’s seat from wherever they are.

Pinterest users are aspirational thinkers and planners, so hosting the experience on this platform made perfect sense. We created scenic road trip content – from coastal highways to desert plains – allowing the virtual driver to choose the route that appeals most to them. With three key location decisions made along the way, users can experience a range of different environments, with the cinematic visuals blending into each other seamlessly thanks to carefully plotted transitions.

We leveraged game mechanics to encourage users to collect ‘moments’ on their journey to make the experience as memorable as possible. Audio and video hotspots appear throughout the experience, providing ambient music and relevant visual moments to complement the chosen environment – such as surfers enjoying the waves by the beach, and the buzz of jazz music in downtown New York. These immersive touches allow the user to fully connect with the experience and imagine their lifestyle as a Toyota owner.

At the end of their ride, Pinners are served a custom outro clip based off of their decisions along the way, along with a shareable graphic that summarises their journey.

The results

This adventurous project highlights the future of product discovery, successfully highlighting two of Toyota’s SUV vehicles and allowing Pinterest audiences to consider becoming a Toyota owner.