Real-Time Marketing: Toyota Tries It With Prius Brand

Between quality problems in its core brand and the supply chain impact of the Japanese earthquake, Toyota has clevely adopted one of the newest marketing ploys - real-time:

Todd Wasserman has the story in Mashable:

"The hybrid brand will launch two 10-hour Prius Records webcasts on March 30 and March 31 on ToyotaPriusProjects.com. The stated goal is to set 200 records in that time.

Unlike Mitsubishi’s recent event in which it broke five driving-related Guinness World Records in 24 hours, however, the effort for the Prius is a lot more whimsical. Rather than Guinness, the record-keeper in this case is the Universal Record Database. Records include “The Largest Mural Created During a 3-hour Prius Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle Charge” and “Most Shadow Animals Made with Prius LED Headlights in Two Minutes.”

As evinced by such categories, the tone of the effort is in line with Prius’s last major social media effort, its “What is the Plural of Prius?” campaign that attempted to get people on Facebook and Twitter to debate that topic.

Real-time marketing is a growing trend. Campaigns and brands attempt to prompt such social media chatter by injecting themselves into talk around an event (like the Academy Awards) or creating events designed to take place in real time (like Coca-Cola’s program with Maroon 5 Tuesday in London to compose a song in 24 hours).