Radio Australia Today Editorial

The Toyota ad. When crassness meets crassness.

15 December 2009

Have you seen the latest TV advertisement from Toyota in Australia?

The scenario is that a young man goes to pick up his girlfriend. He is met at the front door by the girlfriend’s father. What follows is a string of innuendo along the lines of:

“I’m here to take Jennifer’s virginity out tonight. Is she ready to go?”

” I hope I haven’t come too prematurely.”

As you can surmise, it is not particularly subtle. To give a modicum of credit to the ad-maker, it does manage to squeeze in features of the car being promoted, like its rigid cell frame. In this case, after the young guy makes the obligatory crack about big airbags up-front, even the father joins in with what is probably the worst line of the lot (and remember here he is supposed to be talking about his own daughter):

” So she can take a pounding in any direction.”

The crime in this case is that the ad is not nearly as funny as a 1970s Benny Hill sketch, which at the very least had cleverness about it. This ad has a sleazy feel about it that even half-drunk patrons in a pub would find offensive, especially if they have daughters themselves.

The ad apparently won a prize in a competition. The fact that the comp was sponsored by Toyota might or might not have anything to do with it, but from the outrage in the community today, at least this advert has been a marker that shows that we have moved on, and are not about to revert to cheap sexist jokes at the expense of women.

To kick the point home, I should leave you with the final line from the ad, which has the young guy promising: “I’ll have her on her back by 11.”

I think that it’s the advertising agency that will be on its back by the end of this episode.

- Phil Kafcaloudes