Toyota Spare Parts: When copywriting drives an emotional argument.

#RetroAdventuresInCopywriting: Circa 2014, The Toyota Spare Parts campaign

The greyer side of automotive in the UAE:

An article in Khaleej Times, revealed a staggering truth that seems to continue even to this day: the UAE recorded the seizure of over 94,000 fake parts with a combined value of Dhs 2.39 million in the first half of 2022.

It’s a known evil that counterfeit parts from the ‘grey market’, including engine oils, oil filters and brakepads, severely damage your vehicle, reducing its reliability and long-term residual value.

But what’s far worse: ?They result in the failure of vital car parts such as brakes while driving. According to WHO, about 1.3 million lives are lost to road traffic crashes, with 93% of the world’s fatalities occuring in low and middle-income countries (having 60% of the world’s vehicles).

These are the countries targeted by counterfeit companies selling fake auto-parts at cheaper rates, exposing millions of families to the risk of losing their lives because of a road accident!

Back in 2014, the fake parts market posed a serious problem for our Toyota brand principals (under the distributorship of Al-Futtaim Motors). Apart from eating into the sales of Toyota genuine parts, it affected the overall global reputation of the Toyota brand, in terms of its durability and quality.

Campaigns that spoke about the long-term advantages of using genuine100% Toyota parts, weren’t quite cutting the mustard. No amount of rational offers or value comparisons were solving the problem.

The Genuine concern over Fake parts:

We realised that the decision for choosing parts at cheaper rates (outlasting the need for genuine quality certification), was triggering the mad rush for vehicle service.

While these are ‘instant’ individual decisions made looking at the purse, no one stops to think twice about who’s travelling with them (think family or friends), when they are behind the wheel.

Research revealed that a large number of car-crash deaths way back in 2014, involved loss of control over vehicles resulting in the deaths of families, ?especially from the Arab expat and Asian communities with families.

We hit upon a simple insight:

Going for low prices can never be a consideration if it costs the priceless safety of your family. Would you put a price on your family’s safety? ?

Our creative approach was a human realization of this fact: “100% Genuine Peace of Mind for your Family’s Safety” that rewrote the approach of “100% Genuine Quality”.

Driving home our Idea:

Goodbye: Twisted metal car imagery and scary car carsh photos.

Goodbye: Long winding educational posts and print ads, talking of comparisons and overburdened jargons on advantages.

Hello: Visual simplicity that dramatised one hard hitting message to the many diverse nationalities with large families in the UAE across the campaign: “Can you put a price on your family’s safety?”

The communication garnered visibility and ran across the UAE in OOH, print, in-showroom posters, digital, on the website.

It even worked like a powerful direct piece of communication leveraging the idea on the packaging: each Toyota genuine part was repackaged with a ‘price tag’ that simply showed a family photo when displayed on sale shelves.

A powerful statement to make customers stop and think again…for the sake of their families.

?You can also hear the radio spot for this campaign here: https://www.adforum.com/talent/82207635-cherry-koshy/work/34650052

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