The Second Wordle
Read the story- Brand
- Toyota
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Saatchi & Saatchi
Objective
Toyota needed to launch the Crown, its most premium and image-defining sedan yet, to an affluent, highly educated audience known for tuning out advertising. The brief wasn't just visibility — it was getting that audience to actually remember the model name.
Solution
Players open what looks like a bonus round of Wordle, tucked into the New York Times site they already visit daily. The rules are unchanged: a five-letter word, six guesses, with tiles turning color to show which letters are right and in place. Guess by guess, players type out letters and watch the feedback build toward the answer — and the word they're spelling out, one attempt at a time, turns out to be CROWN. Solve it and the session ends there, with the model name already typed by the player's own hand rather than read off a banner.
Results
The branded puzzle drew more than 14 million impressions, a 63% completion rate among players who started it, and a 97% win rate among those who finished.
- 1
The player is a regular Wordle user on The New York Times site or app, used to a single daily puzzle and six tries to guess a five-letter word — the one-per-day limit is the sore point the campaign plays on.
- 2
The Times offers a second, bonus round of Wordle beyond the daily puzzle, branded for the Toyota Crown: the extra game itself, not a banner beside it, is the ad.
- 3
The round uses the standard Wordle interface: a five-wide, six-row grid and an on-screen keyboard, kept visually identical to the original so the appeal rests on getting "another Wordle," not on any new mechanic.
- 4
The player types five-letter guesses one at a time; each submitted word colors its tiles for correct-letter-correct-spot, correct-letter-wrong-spot, and absent letters, and the player uses that feedback to narrow guesses across attempts.
- 5
The hidden answer is CROWN, the car's model name, so solving the puzzle means spelling out the product name letter by letter rather than just seeing it displayed.
- 6
The round is built to end in a win: it was tuned easy enough that most players who start finish it, and nearly all who finish solve it, guaranteeing the brand word gets typed out in full.
