The brief was to make Hilux Hybrid famous in every New Zealand rural community. The budget was not famous in every New Zealand rural community material. It was creative ingenuity time.
So Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand is towing a four-metre-tall headline built from 3.5 tonnes of steel across New Zealand using a Toyota Hilux Hybrid and a 3-axle trailer.
The design by Ben Lockwood of Craftshop was engineered by Andrew Turney from Gyro in a warehouse west of Auckland. It is actually two headline welded together – it can be read from boath sides. It took two months to build using tonnes of steel, 974 bolts, and 6512 spot welds, before being mounted on the purpose-built 6-metre-long trailer. The headline was too big to make as one piece so it was built in a modular form with 140 folds, 974 bolts and 6,512 welds – and with sustainability in mind. It is fully recyclable. 3.5 tonne is heavier than most boats, caravans, or baby elephants. The weight was chosen as it is the maximum towing rate for the new Hilux Hybrid and proves that hybrids, in this case a Hilux with a motor-generator and additional 48V battery, can do the heavy lifting. It was scaled to fit the legally maximum trailer, 6 metres long and 4 metres high, but required a triple axle and independent braking. The trailer was towed to the local weighing station to check both its road worthiness and legitimise its big headline’s claim.
Steve Cochran, chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, stated, “I loved this idea the moment I saw it. A mobile billboard isn’t anything new, but a headline that is literally a product demonstration is super surprising. Yes, it’s a little meta, but if the reaction it gets on highways with people winding down windows to take photos is anything to go on, we think it’ll be just as popular as past Hilux campaigns.”
So far, the headline has already been towed to a number of locations for content filming. Now it is on tour to events including A&P shows all around the country for the next few months. Through a media partnership with The Rock, it will also turn up at various locations and dealerships throughout both islands (it’s booked to go on the inter-island ferry). Online content will be posted along the way using the handle, #hiluxhybridtour. The trailer acts as the headline in traditional large format OOH, and features in short-form videos, one of which shows how it was made (the target audience of farmers and tradies will be into that).
