Car companies often target genders and age groups with their products, but it’s very seldom – particularly in this supposed age of enlightenment – that they are brazen enough state outright in an advert that a particular vehicle is “for men only”, or vice versa for that matter.
However Toyota of Egypt has pulled out all the chauvinistic stops with its latest “Made for men” advertising campaign for the Fortuner.
Consisting of a video, (see below,) and pictures posted on Facebook and YouTube, the gist of it is that since modern man no longer needs to hunt, it’s harder for him to “liberate his man side” but thankfully he still knows how to “use his power” – hence the reason he needs to own the “powerful” Fortuner.
As you would expect, however, the ad has garnered mixed reviews on Toyota’s social media channels.
“Toyota Egypt spent a lot of money to do an ad that excludes 50% of the market! Wake up, this is 21st century not the 18th!” wrote one YouTube user. “Sexist ad, we were considering a Fortuner, now we need to look for the competition because my family does not support sexist brands!”
There was plenty of Toyota bashing on the Facebook post, which attracted over three million views and comments like these: “Hmmmmm. so it’s only for men? Well done Toyota, you just lost nearly half of your sales with this sexist ad.” Another wrote: “Toyota Global are you aware of this sexist ad? You need to deal with this garbage ASAP.”
And the accusations continued: “What a racist message!!! As a female racer and off-roader, I totally dislike this campaign.”
“Someone tell me this was satire….pLEASE LOL,” wrote another user.
Some females saw the lighter side of it however: “Just got out of the bank on my way to Toyota Egypt to buy the new Fortuner, but then this it’s for men only (crying face).”
Of course, there were some positive comments from the guys, to the tune of: “This ad is genius, I love this car,” and “Finally , we got something made for Men”.