Toyota Partners with ‘Masters of Self-Expression’ in New Aygo Campaign
The&Partnership has unveiled its latest work for Toyota: a collaboration with four renowned UK drag artists – the ultimate masters of self-expression – where they were given carte blanche to make their own advert for the Toyota AYGO.
The Toyota AYGO is the small car that brings a sense of fun and freedom to the everyday, and lets people express their own personality and “Go Your Own Way”.
Launching with an exciting and unique out-of-home activation, ‘Go Your Own Way’, builds on AYGO’s long-running tagline ‘Go Fun Yourself’. Working collaboratively with four highly expressive drag queens – Stella Meltdown, Le Fil, Alfie Ordinary and Liquorice Black – The&Partnership has brought to life the imaginative, cheeky personality of the AYGO. The campaign showcases AYGO’s credentials as the ultimate bold and colourful car, owning an AYGO is letting your fun side out to play, and the four performers were each given an AYGO and free rein on creative direction. Three acts worked with multi award-winning fashion photographer Kristian Schuller to create their individual poster campaigns, with an art installation to follow over the coming weeks.
All four drag queens were chosen for their commitment to true self-expression, and to living entirely their own way. Hailing from Manchester is Liquorice Black, a sultry movie star from the 1920s who performs exclusively in black and white. Stella Meltdown creates a media meltdown for the camera, inspired by the iconic ‘It Girls’ of the noughties. Le Fil is a multidisciplinary artist who explores sculpture, music and dance and Alfie Ordinary brings her utopian blend of smiles, sunshine and glitter.
The campaign will be activated on social media, digital display and VOD as well as out-of-home – including a series of insightful documentary-style films capturing the personality and story of each of the performers and the creative process behind their poster campaigns.
Directed by Ben Addelman, whose work has been screened at Sundance, Edinburgh and Durban Film Festivals, the documentary films – which will run across digital and social – offer an insight into the acts of the four drag queens, what motivates them as performers, and why it is important to each of them to live life in their own way. In the words of Stella Meltdown “I think I would go crazy if I couldn’t let rip sometimes!”
The&Partnership enlisted the help of casting team Deborah Burley and Joshua Kerr to help them search the UK for the perfect Drag Artists for the campaign.
The media strategy for AYGO revolves around using high impact, disruptive media to drive fame, combined with a data-led approach focused on reaching our core audience of 18-34 women.
Digital outdoor will launch the campaign and drive awareness across our target audience in city centres and shopping malls. Online video, social and display will provide the sustain element of the campaign, combining a mixture of sequential, cross-device video targeting and interactive formats to grab attention.
Dom Gettins, Creative Director – Team Toyota at The&Partnership, said: “This was a very different campaign to work on – Liquorice, Stella, Le Fil and Alfie Ordinary are true creatives in their own right, and collaborating with them to bring the cheeky personality of AYGO to life has created four unique pieces of work, each with its own flavour and personality. It’s been an interesting and rewarding process, and we hope the result resonates across the UK as a fun, playful collaboration with four talented artists, a great director in Ben and an equally imaginative brand in Toyota.”
Emma Lane, Manager, Brand Awareness at Toyota, said: “We love this campaign – it’s colourful, vibrant and the expressive nature of each of the four artists’ work beautifully captures the playful spirit behind AYGO.”
The&Partnership was appointed last November to consolidate Toyota’s pan-European creative, content, digital and media planning and buying business.
In April, the agency group opened 16 new offices across 15 countries in Europe to support both Toyota and its luxury marque Lexus across Europe – bringing together all marketing disciplines to work closely alongside the client’s local marketing teams, and reporting back to The&Partnership’s headquarters in London.
