Watch the ad above!

We’ll start off by saying – Bad Lip Readings can be very funny. The Speaking Human team has been known to pass around the videos from time to time. They’re one of the better viral video series we’ve seen.

While there’s no doubt that the actual Bad Lip Reading videos are wacky and often make little sense, we’re pretty sure that this execution has completely missed the mark. The first time this ad showed up, there were a few of us watching. One word describes the room at that moment – crickets.

The fact is, we’re generally pretty positive when it comes to reviewing marketing campaigns. And as much as we tried, we couldn’t find a lot to like about this ad series. Some have mentioned that the tunes are catchy. We disagree. Some argue that they’re supposed to be wacky like the original Bad Lip Readings and that’s the point. That may be true, but it doesn’t make us feel any less horrible about the choice to use these ads to promote the Toyota C-HR.

The plain truth is that some concepts just don’t work. They may seem like good ideas when you’re storyboarding, or brainstorming or maybe even producing them. But there comes a point when you get close enough to a final product that it’s clear the message has been lost. At that point, it is your duty to pull-the-plug. If the original purpose of your initiative and the goals you’ve set will likely be negatively impacted by the effort, don’t do it. Sure there are a lot of weird and bizarre ad campaigns out there that find surprising success, but sometimes doing something just because it might go viral isn’t the best justification. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

What did you think of this Toyota ad?

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