Judge's Selection: Best In Show | Hillman Curtis

www.toyota.com/vehicles/minisite/yaris/experience

HELLO DESIGN
You don’t necessarily think of “relief” as an emotional state integral to the experience of judging a web design competition. But when he took a look at the site for Toyota’s affordable Yaris, judge Hillman Curtis—founder of hillmancurtis inc., New York—got a dose of welcome relief. When it comes to car sites, he tends to brace himself for cookie-cutter design. Typically drenched in royalty-free techno, car sites almost invariably feature a Flash-based, photorealistic rendering of a spinning, sparkling car.

“There seems to be a big emphasis on slick and sexy on these car sites,” says Curtis. “They’re very formulaic. But this was a little more funky, more approachable and fun. They weren’t using the monkey trick.” According to Curtis, the monkey trick goes like this: Dangle a shiny object in front of a monkey, then watch an otherwise blasé primate lustfully grab at whatever you’ve got.

“They weren’t doing that,” Curtis adds. “Which was a relief.” Once the Yaris site—created by Hello Design, Los Angeles—makes clear it’s going to treat us consumers like the mammals with advanced abstract thinking skills that we are, it offers an experience of exploration and discovery. On a home page populated by illustrator Dave Needham’s funky animal/mechanical/humanoid characters (e.g., a walking toaster) that appear in the print campaign, users choose from one of five cities—Miami, Boston, Austin, Los Angeles or Seattle—in which to take a virtual test drive. “Part of the strategy was to do something that would last beyond the launch itself,” says David Lai, CEO/creative director of Hello Design. “We didn’t just want to put up the site and be done with it.” Toward that end, Hello Design introduced a new city tour every month, so the rollout spanned roughly five months from its spring 2006 launch.

On a video split screen—which shows four different points of view, each synched in time—users experience what it would be like to drive a Yaris Sedan or Liftback down real streets in real neighborhoods. Hello did some technical backflips so users could switch from one point of view to another in real time. That results in a video-game-ish, choose-your-own-adventure feeling. Otherwise, the site is technologically straightforward—and contentrich. As you drive down the street, passing cool places to shop or grab some cheap eats, call-outs offer information on each venue. They were carefully chosen for their relevance to Yaris’ young target market, which is pretty likely to take an open-exploration road trip like this virtual one.

From a functional standpoint, the fact that the site isn’t clunky or bogged down by loading bars earned Curtis’ approval. It mirrors the experience consumers want from any car, he says—one that’s responsive, easy to operate and quick. From an experiential standpoint, “It’s emotional. For me personally, it struck a chord because I happen to like these cities, and even if I’d never been there, I could get a feel for each. What it ultimately communicates to me is a spirit of adventure.”

From the start, Toyota and its ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi LA aimed to work outside the norms of a typical car site. “I applaud them for that,” says Lai. “It wasn’t about catering to the lowest common denominator. It was about creating a worthwhile experience without watering it down.” Make no mistake: There’s plenty of information on the little car’s features. But airbags and gas mileage are not emphasized above all else. “We focused more on the lifestyle of a Yaris driver,” says Lai, “the kind of people they are, where they might want to eat, the kinds of music they might listen to. The virtual test drive created something more authentic. Rather than just a beautiful car shot, you get a feel for the car in the environment.”

Giveaways, including buddy icons and a screensaver, are just as relevant. Even when Yaris does toot its feature horn—such as in the demonstration of how easy it is to use the car’s MP3 jack— users are paid back, in this case with viral video from Tokyo Plastic, the design collaborative that worked with Saatchi & Saatchi LA on Yaris’ television ads. There are other little courtesies: When waiting for items to load, the site offers factoids about each city (Los Angeles is home to more museums than any other American city, for instance) to help pass the time.

Curtis was particularly impressed with the free downloads of music from local bands. “Offering takeaways can be a mixed bag,” he says, noting the plethora of film companies that seem to think the chance to put a movie trailer on an iPod is sufficient recompense for a consumer’s time. “This was more thoughtful,” he says. “The music on the site is something you can take with you, and when it does appear later on your playlist, it becomes part of the brand. It’s a sort of indirect support of the local arts scene, and that’s a wonderful thing to attach to your corporate identity.”

Smart companies recognize it’s not sufficient to drop a 30- second broadcast spot online, Curtis adds. “It’s more appropriate to think of original content that takes advantage of the web’s ability to handle almost any medium—and, moreover, content that takes advantage of the web’s ability to allow the users to steer their own course and explore. This site did that very well.”
Tiffany Meyers