Toyota | 4Runner

An influencer campaign before an “influencer” was a thing.

The Toyota 4Runner is a mid-size sport utility vehicle (SUV) produced by Toyota and has been sold around the world since 1984. One of the last body-on-frame SUVs manufactured today, the Toyota 4Runner has cemented its status as an off-road icon for the last 30 years. I was an art director/ACD on the social aspect of the 2014 Toyota 4Runner launch.

The 4Runner buyer could be best described as a modern explorer. The buyer enjoyed the outdoors, skewed younger, and was more active on social. We had to be smart with how we communicated with them. Like most millennials they were also weary of heavy-handed advertising; if they could sense the hand of the marketer, we had failed. We knew we had to speak with them in an honest and authentic way that was relevant to them.

I have been a big fan of award-winning outdoor photographer, Chris Burkard, for years. His visual style and subject-matter spoke to the aspirations of our 4Runner buyer. I reached out to him personally, introduced the campaign idea, and solidified the relationship with him as a creative partner for this launch. The plan was to leverage his status on Instagram and get a few images for the social space.

What happened was the photographs he captured became the backbone of the campaign. Chris Burkard’s images went on to be featured in print, OOH, social, and as posters in several outdoor enthusiast magazines.