IMAGINE Ecodora
- Brand
- Toyota
- Year
- 2013
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Simulation & Strategy
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Bascule Inc.
Objective
Toyota built the TOYOTOWN campaign site to cement "hybrid equals Toyota" in viewers' minds, turning people who had just seen the TV spots into visitors curious about specific models. IMAGINE Eco-Dora, the portal's second web chapter, tackled one piece of that job: teaching drivers that a hybrid's fuel savings depend on how it's driven, in step with Toyota's "Fun to Eco-Drive" push launched in October 2013 to promote hybrids, ease environmental strain and cut accidents through gentler driving.
Solution
Visitors arrive on the eco-drive page inside the TOYOTOWN site and first watch actress Yuriko Yoshitaka demonstrate four driving touches: easing off at the start, accelerating briskly, holding a steady throttle, and braking early and gently. Then the player takes over, dragging the mouse to trace an "accelerator line" — a curve showing exactly how hard to press the gas and brake at each moment of the drive. Tracking it closely raises the score and the overall eco-drive rating; a precise run earns a short reward clip of Yoshitaka acting out the matching gesture, from smoothing a wind-blown skirt to flipping an okonomiyaki, applying lipstick, or sliding a door shut. Wander off the line, though, and the reward clip swaps her out for an unfamiliar man flashing a smug grin instead. The session ends once the player finishes the course and sees their final eco-drive score.
- 1
The game sits inside TOYOTOWN, Toyota's campaign site extending its city-of-hybrid-drivers ad universe, in a section called IMAGINE エコドラ ("Ekodora," shorthand for eco-drive), alongside a separate section profiling individual car models.
- 2
The section opens on a prompt rather than a rulebook, inviting the player to picture the pedal motion that improves fuel economy rather than read instructions.
- 3
A lesson from actress Yuriko Yoshitaka introduces four eco-driving moves, each tagged with a single descriptive word: fuwari (softly), sumiyaka ni (swiftly), jiwatto (gradually), and hayame-yuruyaka (early and easing off).
- 4
The core loop has the player set the cursor at a starting point, then trace a curve called the accelerator line with the mouse — a graph of how hard to press the gas and brake through that phase of driving. Staying on the line earns accuracy points; drifting off it fails the attempt.
- 5
A clean run plays a short video of Yoshitaka acting out the same pedal motion through an everyday gesture — fixing a wind-blown skirt for fuwari, flipping an okonomiyaki for sumiyaka ni, applying lipstick for jiwatto, closing a sliding shoji door for hayame-yuruyaka. A failed run instead cuts to an unfamiliar Western man with a smug grin, the game's mock anti-reward.
- 6
Each attempt is scored with an eco-drive rating reflecting how closely the cursor tracked the curve.
- 7
The player repeats the loop across all four phases of a drive — starting, accelerating, cruising, and slowing to a stop — and by the end has seen all four of Yoshitaka's gesture videos.
