Prius Takes Over Dictionary.com's Home Page
To advertise its third-generation Prius hybrid, Toyota is playing a bit of word association with potential customers.
With help from advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, the car maker is working with Dictionary.com for ads targeted to the definitions of words such as “sustainability,” “green” and “moonroof.” Those keyword-based ads launched last week, but Prius also took over the online dictionary’s home page Wednesday and Thursday, with another two-day takeover planned for July. Dictionary.com has also included Prius ads in its word-of-the-day emails, which reach 1.3 million subscribers.
Doug Frisbie, Toyota’s national media manager, said the company was active with search engines before (and this campaign ties with partnerships with MSN (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO), as well), but never before a dictionary site.
The objective of the Prius campaign is to integrate the ads with Dictionary.com content — to “enhance, rather than interrupt,” he said.
