Toyota's bold bid to remake Camry's image

The truest measure of good car advertising is whether it moves the merchandise. And the Toyota Camry has been the best-selling car in the country for more than a decade, with a solid reputation for reliability, safety and durability.

So why rock the boat?

That's what some marketing experts are wondering about the newest Camry ad campaign, which casts the re-engineered 2015 midsize sedan as a "bold" choice.

The change in advertising -- like the car's more daring styling -- was motivated by consumer feedback: Nowadays, dependability and safety can be found in many vehicles, said Ethan Leighton, Camry's vehicle marketing and communications manager. "The differentiator that we're seeing is emotional attributes" related to the vehicle's styling and performance. With the 2015 Camry, Toyota is aiming for consumers ages 35 and older, Leighton said, and underscoring the message that a dependable car also can be fun to drive.

The messaging effort kicked off a year before the launch date with a spot called "Camry Thrill Ride," which aired last year. It featured non-Camry owners who dismissed the car as something "to go grocery shopping in," then chang-ed their minds after a roller-coaster-style ride with a professional driver in the sporty SE model of the previous-generation Camry. The ad helped lower the median age of SE buyers from the lower 60s to 45, Toyota said.

This was followed by "Breakout," which began airing on Oct. 5 during "Sunday Night Football." In this ad, a modern-day Ben Braddock tears through the venue of an outdoor wedding reception in a ruby red 2015 Camry XSE and drives off with the delighted bride. Next in the series was "Guitar," in which a young woman delivers a long-lost guitar to B.B. King, taking the Camry on her journey. The ads carried the tag line: "The Bold New Camry."

Erich Funke, creative director of Saatchi L.A., Toyota's ad agency, said the ads were intended to show people making bold choices and in doing so changing the way people viewed the Camry as well.

Added Leighton: "We wanted to infuse more of these emotional attributes into the Camry."

Toyota's bold-facing of "bold" is the antidote to bland, which is "something they needed to address," said Tom Libby, an analyst at IHS Automotive. He argued that the re-engineering, which represents more than a standard midcycle face-lift, aptly conveys the bold image.

Toyota may not have needed much sizzle when the midsize sedans were all about safe, cookie-cutter designs, said Ed Kim, vice president of industry analysis for AutoPacific. But "the segment, in a flash, went from really vanilla to really exciting," he said, pointing to the Hyundai Sonata, Kia Optima, Ford Fusion and the 2015 Chrysler 200 as examples of more stylish competitors. "They're not in danger of losing the crown any time soon, but they might have been in danger if they were complacent," he said.

As of the end of October, Camry sales for the year were at 368,142, about 36,600 higher than its nearest competitor, the Honda Accord.

But some marketing experts felt Toyota is missing the mark. Kevin Baumann, CEO of JKR Advertising & Marketing in Orlando, said the commercials emphasize image but fail to mention any benefits or improvements to the vehicle.

"It bothers me that you have a whole brand new product" with "nice beauty shots" but no mention of features, he said. He argued that few people in the target market are familiar with B.B. King and said Toyota could have selected someone more recognizable to young people, such as Lenny Kravitz or Bruno Mars.

Funke countered that with such a short ad, he'd rather spotlight a "gorgeous looking car than a detail." He said many of the people in the target demographic were familiar with King.

Christie Nordhielm, an associate professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said playing up style instead of quality -- Toyota's hallmark -- "is the opposite of what you want to be doing."

"They've left their equity and put themselves at parity with other cars," she said. "In the end, reliability is what Toyota's all about. I worry they're giving up their differentiation."

Lincoln Merrihew, senior vice president for Millward Brown Digital, said the re-engineered Camry seems to be resonating in terms of consumer interest. The in-market shopper number, a count of those actively researching new Camrys, was 121,000 for September, the highest it has been since May 2008, when it was 146,000, and up from 103,000 in August.

"The lift we've already seen is a great positive for Camry," he said. "So far the sales potential is very solid."

But that hardly means the image makeover is a success. Buzz about the ads surrounding the new Camry has been conspicuously absent in social media, said Beth Desautels, vice president of North America for Kantar Media News Intelligence. The company tracked the use of words such as "cool," "young" and "bold" in reference to the Camry since July "and we haven't really seen anything," she said. "There's been no uptick," especially compared with the reaction to the Lincoln ads starring Matthew McConaughey.

Toyota has other initiatives under way to expose younger customers to the Camry name. It's sponsoring the Monster Energy Cup, a supercross race held in Las Vegas, and spotlighting the 2015 Camry in promotions during the 2015 supercross season.

It's also hoping to attract a youthful market by creating a six-episode YouTube series related to YouTube influencers, people who have a broad following on the video site. The influencers will take the Camry on spins and experience it in different settings, videotaping their trips and posting it to their channels.

Camry also has partnered with Oprah Winfrey's "The Life You Want Weekend" tour, an eight-city arena tour wrapping up this week that includes an onstage segment, "Toyota Standing O-vation," that recognizes people "living bold lives."

Image makeovers are tough in the auto industry, but not unprecedented. Volvo was known for making safe-but-boxy vehicles, and tried to change that through more flowing design. Buick is using humorous ads to both acknowledge and change its reputation for stodgy vehicles that appeal to old people, Libby said.

Baumann pointed out that it took Hyundai almost 10 years to change the perception to a company that manufactures stylish, high-quality vehicles.

Camry's transformation won't be done quickly, Libby said, and it needs to extend across Toyota's product portfolio.

He said, "The blandness goes beyond Camry."