Click over to Toyota’s youtube channel, and you’ll find their latest commericals.  Best of all, there's an interesting making-of video for the new Prius ads which have my 10-month old son enraptured every time he hears the female a cappella voices. You know the ones? The 2010 hybrid car goes driving through a magical world of “nature” that is literally hundreds of silly people in bright colors, dancing, jumping and waving.

The tagline reads “Harmony between man, nature, and machine”.

I am fascinated by this campaign, but more-so, I am impressed that the making-of video is readily available to curious web surfers like myself.

Sometimes, disclosing your methods can further entice your audience. Sometimes something this new and cool has to be explained, like a magic trick that is spoiled the second time around for the audience’s benefit, making us chuckle at how it’s really done. Show us the invisible wires! Show us the green screen. We want to say, ‘I know how they did that!’ What once was movie magic is now more of a network of afficionados who have computer skills. The more one knows, the more included one feels. Indeed, I find myself wanting to explore who came up with the concept for the Prius campaign, who directed the commercials (he’s Japanese?), who produced the web videos and who sang the song.

And so, of course, the Toyota brand sticks in my mind all afternoon. Way to go, them.