My rant: new Toyota commerical ticks me off

[///M-Spec]

<rant>

Have you seen this commerical? A young woman drives to work in her 4,000 lb. fashion accessory, putting makeup on the whole time she's behind the wheel. Not only lipstick, but eyeliner as well. Apparently, the thrust of the commerical is that the Highlander rides really well for a truck, because when the woman gets to work, a collegue is getting out of her sport futility with lipstick all over her face.

I'm pissed as hell a major corporation like Toyota would actually encourage this sort of assine behavior behind the wheel. Its bad enough we already have people like this on the road doing it without encouragement. Now a mainstream car company uses it as a selling point?! "Look, if you buy a Toyota Highlander, you can pretty much let the friggin thing drive itself! Now you too can exist in a 10 foot bubble of awareness while this 2 ton testosterone substitute meaneces everyone around you too poor to afford or too smart to buy one! It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

Thank, you Toyota... f%^k@% c*&k#%kers. 👎

</rant>


///M-Spec

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
... It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

Hahaha, I'm loving that.

I'm with you all the way on this one.

Bad Toyota! Bad!

 

[Powripper]

I know what you mean, one thing I cant stand is people who do other things behind the weel such as talking on a cell phone, smoke or do makeup\hair its one of the very few things that just drive me up the wall!!

 

[emad]

lol
I've never seen the commercial but I'm with you on that comment 👍.

Toyota is selling things to automatically parallel park the car. They don't have motion sensors or radar on it so it's pretty damn easy to run a kid over with it...

 

[HIGH ON LIFE]

I havent seen that one but how is that advertising it just says you can do your makeup whille driving without screwing up.It has nothing to do with the car at all.

 

[Delray Sandusk]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
"Look, if you buy a Toyota Highlander, you can pretty much let the friggin thing drive itself! Now you too can exist in a 10 foot bubble of awareness while this 2 ton testosterone substitute meaneces everyone around you too poor to afford or too smart to buy one! It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

But... but... they have a tiny little sentence at the bottom of the screen saying "Professional driver, do not attempt"! Surely that microscopic bit of blurry text in the bottom right hand corner of the screen will keep people from doing something as stupid as not paying attention while driving, right?

 

[miata13B]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
<rant>

Have you seen this commerical? A young woman drives to work in her 4,000 lb. fashion accessory, putting makeup on the whole time she's behind the wheel. Not only lipstick, but eyeliner as well. Apparently, the thrust of the commerical is that the Highlander rides really well for a truck, because when the woman gets to work, a collegue is getting out of her sport futility with lipstick all over her face.

I'm pissed as hell a major corporation like Toyota would actually encourage this sort of assine behavior behind the wheel. Its bad enough we already have people like this on the road doing it without encouragement. Now a mainstream car company uses it as a selling point?! "Look, if you buy a Toyota Highlander, you can pretty much let the friggin thing drive itself! Now you too can exist in a 10 foot bubble of awareness while this 2 ton testosterone substitute meaneces everyone around you too poor to afford or too smart to buy one! It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

Thank, you Toyota... f%^k@% c*&k#%kers. 👎

</rant>


///M-Spec

You know exactly how I feel about SUVSs and the incident with a parked Miata. . . As for the commercial, people do what people see. . . A friend of mine watched a ford ranger commercial once and saw it drive through a river. . . Well he took his Ranger through there and hydrolocked his engine. . .


I refer to this as the Monkey see, Monkey do Syndrome

 

[Tercel_driver]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
<rant>

Have you seen this commerical? A young woman drives to work in her 4,000 lb. fashion accessory, putting makeup on the whole time she's behind the wheel. Not only lipstick, but eyeliner as well. Apparently, the thrust of the commerical is that the Highlander rides really well for a truck, because when the woman gets to work, a collegue is getting out of her sport futility with lipstick all over her face.

I'm pissed as hell a major corporation like Toyota would actually encourage this sort of assine behavior behind the wheel. Its bad enough we already have people like this on the road doing it without encouragement. Now a mainstream car company uses it as a selling point?! "Look, if you buy a Toyota Highlander, you can pretty much let the friggin thing drive itself! Now you too can exist in a 10 foot bubble of awareness while this 2 ton testosterone substitute meaneces everyone around you too poor to afford or too smart to buy one! It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

Thank, you Toyota... f%^k@% c*&k#%kers. 👎

</rant>

///M-Spec

Its called advertising. Maybe they are trying to establish the connection between Toyota and smooth ride. Have you seen tv ads before or is this the first one you have seen in your entire life? Do you know that tv ads are known to exaggerate the good qualities of a product? Or Were you born yesterday? There are some people that get the intended message and there are some ignorants and morons who take some mysterious message that was probably not mean to be, or completely non-existent, and take everything negative. The same people that complain about everything. Violent videogames, Janet Jackson showing off her breast. But hey! maybe it will be better for you to go and ride a horse to work!

 

[miata13B]

Originally posted by Tercel_driver

informative post there



Good Save

 

[KosmikFool]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
<rant>

Have you seen this commerical? A young woman drives to work in her 4,000 lb. fashion accessory, putting makeup on the whole time she's behind the wheel. Not only lipstick, but eyeliner as well. Apparently, the thrust of the commerical is that the Highlander rides really well for a truck, because when the woman gets to work, a collegue is getting out of her sport futility with lipstick all over her face.

I'm pissed as hell a major corporation like Toyota would actually encourage this sort of assine behavior behind the wheel. Its bad enough we already have people like this on the road doing it without encouragement. Now a mainstream car company uses it as a selling point?! "Look, if you buy a Toyota Highlander, you can pretty much let the friggin thing drive itself! Now you too can exist in a 10 foot bubble of awareness while this 2 ton testosterone substitute meaneces everyone around you too poor to afford or too smart to buy one! It rides so well in fact, you can continue applying makeup while staring blissfully into the vanity mirror and not even feel the bumps as you roll merrily over bicyclists and people in Miatas! Let a leg up on this arms race until everyone is forced to buy one or be crushed!"

Thank, you Toyota... f%^k@% c*&k#%kers. 👎

</rant>


///M-Spec

My exact thoughts the first time I saw this commercial.

 

[miata13B]

You know what pisses me off more about this, now that I have had a chance to think about this commercial. . . Our society as a whole in America is engulfed in this Commercialized way of buying and selling products. . . Come on, when you see any commercial what is it supposed to do, it is suppose to make you imagine that you are the image. . . (follow me there?). . . I forgot what movie it was, but in it they had this really cool idea of just giving them the real deal. . . Here is an example

Drive a Toyota Highlander, so you can forget totally what is around you and smash into anything and walk away safe. . .

or for smoking

Buy Camels, They'll make you have Cancer before your 50. . .

I think it would be cool if marketing would push that direction . . .


On that note, Let's get back to the Program

 

[Mopar Muscle]

Theres something about toyotas and full-size trucks that doesn't mix.

 

[Famine]

Originally posted by Tercel_driver
Its called advertising. Maybe they are trying to establish the connection between Toyota and smooth ride.

By encouraging people to treat driving as another activity they don't have to think to be able to do? Try that over here and you'll get a "Driving Without Due Care And Attention", a fine of up to £1000 and 3-6 points on your licence (12 is a ban).

I think ///M-Spec has a point - even racing games stick a massive honking disclaimer on the screen saying "Don't do this in real life, you arse."...

 

[miata13B]

Originally posted by Famine
By encouraging people to treat driving as another activity they don't have to think to be able to do? Try that over here and you'll get a "Driving Without Due Care And Attention", a fine of up to £1000 and 3-6 points on your licence (12 is a ban).

I think ///M-Spec has a point - even racing games stick a massive honking disclaimer on the screen saying "Don't do this in real life, you arse."...

What would you think if they showed that commercial and in the end having the truck smashing into a 18 wheeler head on. . . That would be interesting Marketing

 

[Famine]

Ooooooh, yeah...

Would make it more like the drink-driving ads we have over here (well, anti-ads ).

 

[Klostrophobic]

I know I made a post here before. What the hell happened to it? Maybe I didn't hit Submit or something equally stupid.

Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with this ad. It's up to the consumer to see that painting your face, while hauling a gaggle of prepubescent soccer players down Main Street at 47 MPH isn't the greatest idea. It's not Toyota's fault if some ditzy blonde smashes up her SUV because she just had to put on her amber almond lipstick.

On the topic of putting on warnings, I say just remove them and let the problem fix itself. If you're dumb enough to drive and make-up, you deserve to be in a paralyzing car crash. Hell, it's not like your life is worth anything if you can't tell that it's a bad idea.

 

[Famine]

Yeah, but Darwin Awards can't be given to people who take other people out at the same time...

 

[Klostrophobic]

True. Maybe instead of saying Toyota is in the wrong, we should say that it should be made more difficult to get a driving license. You know, just don't give them to morons and all will be fine.

The problem isn't with commercials like this, it's with the DMV and how they will give anyone a license. Test drivers every year, and more strictly.

Or allow retroactive abortions. Whichever is easier on the taxpayers.

 

[///M-Spec]

Originally posted by Tercel_driver
Its called advertising. Maybe they are trying to establish the connection between Toyota and smooth ride. Have you seen tv ads before or is this the first one you have seen in your entire life? Do you know that tv ads are known to exaggerate the good qualities of a product? Or Were you born yesterday? There are some people that get the intended message and there are some ignorants and morons who take some mysterious message that was probably not mean to be, or completely non-existent, and take everything negative. The same people that complain about everything. Violent videogames, Janet Jackson showing off her breast. But hey! maybe it will be better for you to go and ride a horse to work!

Since I was driving cars and paying taxes while you were barely a couple of years out of diapers, I can assure you I was not "born yesterday". As for the company of horses, I do happen to ride about 250 or so very finely bred ones to work every day, thank you.

It is my opinion that this commercial implicitly encourages dangerous behavior. Whether this message is intentional or not is irrelevant. If you had taken the time to read my post properly, you would have seen that I pointed out the intended message of the commercial at the beginning, but was frustrated by the underlying implication of the scenario that played out.

I decided to share my frustration with my fellow GTP'ers and did so in an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek fashion. If you agree, fine. If you don’t that’s fine too. But save the sanctimonious my-**** don’t stink babble for church group. Kindly draw your attention to the title of this thread. It includes the word "rant". This thread is negative by definition . I'm not sure what you were expecting. I guess you made a wrong turn and expected someone to blow sunshine up your a$$ in a forum called "The Rumble Strip". I did happen to be in a not-so-good mood when I wrote it, but I guess you couldn't relate since you never have anything negative to feel or say, do you?

Maybe you’re right. Delicate, wholly wholesome people like you need to be shielded from mean and ignorant old farts like me. So allow me to apologize if I've hurt your feelings; you go on right ahead and keeping applying eyeliner in the rearview mirror. Don’t forget blush too, it'll add nice depth to your cheekbones.

And please, feel free to continue making character generalizations of me based on two paragraphs of rhetoric. You are so right about how I feel about violent video games and Ms. Jackson's right tit. Why don't you follow up by telling everyone how I feel about gay marriages and stem cell research?


///M-Spec

 

[Danoff]

It's not Toyota's fault people drive like morons. I recommend they use whatever tactics they can use to sell their cars and that people who are driving wrecklessly get pulled over.

I'll give you another example...

Some sports cars are advertised as going really really fast on windy roads with zero visibility. That's extremely dangerous and in many cases (depending on speed) illegal. It could get you killed if some maniac is driving his sports car too fast around a turn and goes nose-in to on comming traffic.

I'll bet none of you have a problem with those commercials though. I don't either, I think the company should advertise in whatever way they can (without breaking the law) and let the cops and consumers sort out the result.

I recommend that if you are upset with Toyota for using this marketing technique that you don't buy one. But you should understand that lots of car copanies advertise people doing lots of dangerous things - so you're pretty much going to end up driving a saturn. (that ends my rant )

 

[Giancarlo]

What, so you liked Toyota before the commercial? Especially after they cut the Supra from the production line?

 

[///M-Spec]

Originally posted by danoff
It's not Toyota's fault people drive like morons.

I'm not implying fault in the legal sense. But a company as big as Toyota should act more responsibly than this. I am implying fault in a moral sense. Putting on make up while driving is a dumb thing to do. Any responsible, reasonable person knows this. Advocating and encouraging stupid behavior in stupid people for personal gain is morally reprehensible... and in many cases (not saying this one), illegal.

Originally posted by danoff
I recommend that if you are upset with Toyota for using this marketing technique that you don't buy one.

Hey man, I never suggested punitive action against Toyota, if that's what you're getting at. I can support a person or entity's right to make their decisions (in this case, advertising), but I don't have to support the decision itself.



///M-Spec

 

[milefile]

I think the ad is irresponsible. Why encourage it? It's okay to be pissed off at it ///Mspec. It's not like you called for a law banning it. Contrary to popular belief, you are allowed to not like something that is legal.

 

[Danoff]

I was really getting at the hypocracy of not liking this commercial while accepting commercials that advocate that people speed on dangerous roads.

I also suggested courses of action to take against Toyota if you're offended, and said that I supported whatever method they wanted to use to sell cars.

If that gets them buyers then I'm going to get upset with the buyers rather than Toyota.

Edit:

I'm not implying fault in the legal sense

I was implying that they're not really at fault in any sense.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by ///M-Spec
<rant>
[snip]
</rant>


///M-Spec

That's a quality rant. Nice one!

 

[///M-Spec]

Originally posted by danoff
I was really getting at the hypocracy of not liking this commercial while accepting commercials that advocate that people speed on dangerous roads.

That'd be an unwarranted assumption. It is my opinion that some performance oriented commericals cross the line into the irresponsible, while some don't. I don't instantly love every commerical that depicts a sports car traveling at a high rate of speed.

A perfect example is the Subaru WRX commercial where a young man in his early 20s shows off his car to a friend by tearing up a wet, slick mountain pass at full throttle while listening to loud music. Bad idea. Young men as a whole are bad enough drivers. Subaru should not encourage this. I should point out though, that I happen to like Subarus, I just happen to dislike that commerical.

Originally posted by danoff
I also suggested courses of action to take against Toyota if you're offended, and said that I supported whatever method they wanted to use to sell cars.

If that gets them buyers then I'm going to get upset with the buyers rather than Toyota.

Thanks for the suggestions, but this thread is a rant. It is a single emotional exposition for the sole purpose of me blowing off a little steam, and perhaps some entertainment for like-minded people. I don't require any emotional closure or corrective action and 'm not going to run off and start a petition against Toyota Motor Corp or hire a lawyer and sue them.

Ever hear Denis Leary rant and complain about stuff? Same idea.

Originally posted by danoff
I was implying that they're not really at fault in any sense.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this, danoff. I believe in freedom of expression, but I also believe there's a line of responsiblity that goes along with it.


///M-Spec

 

[Danoff]

That'd be an unwarranted assumption. It is my opinion that some performance oriented commericals cross the line into the irresponsible, while some don't. I don't instantly love every commerical that depicts a sports car traveling at a high rate of speed.

I’m glad to hear that. I really didn’t expect you to have that opinion. Sorry about the assumption. On the other hand, I’ll bet a lot of people who have chimed in on this thread haven’t thought about that.

On a personal note, every time I think I’ve got you acting like a hypocrite you turn out to have the consistent opinion I didn’t think you’d have. Even if we disagree it’s nice to run in to someone who at least thinks through their position.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this, danoff. I believe in freedom of expression, but I also believe there's a line of responsiblity that goes along with it.

Ok, willing to agree to disagree. I do agree with what you wrote here, though. There is a line of responsibility that goes along with freedom of expression. Media is partially responsible for what is socially acceptable. I just don’t think that they are responsible for people’s actions. That would be kinda like blaming cigarette companies for people smoking.

If you’re thinking to yourself “but cigarette companies are responsible for people smoking. Without them, nobody would smoke”, I would say that gun companies (by that rationale) would be responsible for all crimes involving a gun.

Anyway, we’ll agree to disagree. I’m sorry that you didn’t put this one on the opinions board (rather than just making it a rant) because I think there are some good social issues with this one.

 

[TsLeng]

Ok, maybe this is what Toyota should do.

Do it just like what M-spec posted(the lipstick part) then in the middle of it.......BOOM!!!!! Accident happen.

Then "In the all-new Highlander, the ride is SOOOOOOO GOODDDDDDD that u could apply lipstick. But it may just cause your car and life. So enjoy the ride and just drive"

Thats how the ad should be. 2-in-1 effect.

 

[Famine]

Originally posted by danoff
I was really getting at the hypocracy of not liking this commercial while accepting commercials that advocate that people speed on dangerous roads.

Every single advert for a sports car, or in fact any advert showing a car going fast, on TV in my memory took place in a desert.

Buddha alone only knows how I'm going to buy a Mazda 6 and copy that, considering I'm 3,000 miles from the nearest desert.

Advertisers in the UK learned a long time ago that driving fast does not sell - and indeed causes so much negative publicity that it will actually cause a drop in sales...

 

[miata13B]

Originally posted by Famine

Advertisers in the UK learned a long time ago that driving fast does not sell - and indeed causes so much negative publicity that it will actually cause a drop in sales...

That is interesting, by what age group is it affecting the most with the speeding? I know Where I live, luxury is the major selling point, speed does not affect the market too much. . .