Over the last years, the increasingly stringent emission regulations around the world led to the development of green technologies. Toyota took advantage of this favourable context to introduce its first mass-produced hybrid vehicle (e.g. in Japan, it coincided with the signature of the Kyoto protocol, in the U.S. with an anti-SUV campaign).

Toyota’s strategy to promote the Prius car evolved since the first campaign in 1997. At the beginning, the aim was to incite a core target group of customers to adopt an environment friendly vehicle. With the last model, the image of futuristic innovation and emotional value prevailed over the green aspect. This campaign aims at presenting the Toyota Prius.

Although the sales remained limited during the first years, the introduction of the new model in 2003 brought a triple digit annual growth rate. The Prius will probably never represent a major source of profit for Toyota but it certainly contributed to a large extent to Toyota’s strong increase in brand value.