A Wider Net

The trick behind car sales has always been to put the prospect in the car. Even if that meant taking a picture of them and photoshopping them into the car so they could visualize themselves driving it. Now, Toyota and Microsoft have taken it to an odd extreme. They have released a free game on XBOX Live that puts you in one of several models of Yaris, the hip series of customizable cars they hope will be popular among gamers. It puts you in the car - virtually. I seem to recall this being done very poorly with the Ford Focus in an online Alias-themed game, after that car was awkwardly thrust into the popular spy series (like, spies would drive a Focus?)

The difference here is that they haven’t placed you in a regular Yaris - this is a Super Yaris. Is it false advertising when you virtually place someone in a virtual car that, unlike it’s real world counterpart, can scale walls, collect weapons, and blow up enemies?

I like this a lot more than the crappy and intrusive product placement of the Nissan Rogue in the latest season of Shark. I wish I could see which one ultimately realizes the best ROI

Update: I noticed comments like this in the forums: “It is absolutely horrible. This made me hate the Toyota Yaris, a car I had no opinion on before today.” Sure, awareness is part of the sellingprocess, but if you’re going to appeal to a gaming market and try to influence them to buy your car, you may want to make the game not suck.