Toyota's "Gotta Go" Radio Ads Got to Get Go
It's with sadness that I report that the series of radio commercials for Toyota car dealerships featuring that "Gotta Go" guy seem to have disappeared from the air-waves. I haven't heard one for a few days now. The good news is that we've been there before. Don't fear, he'll be back.
For those of you unaware of the latest Toyota radio-only commercials and those who don't listen to AM all day long, the "Gotta Go" advertising campaign is ostensibly about how the narrator (a Toyota car dealership employee,) is telling all the 2008 Toyotas on the lot that they "gotta go," in order to make room for the 2009 models. As such, dealers are dropping their prices like crazy! They're practically giving them away! Because all those Toyotas on the lot just gotta go.
To the non-discerning ear, it's just another annoying radio commercial. Sort of on a par with the new 'Crabby Joes' spots. And sure, superficially, it's just a gimmick for a clearance sale to sell Toyotas.
But the reality is that "Gotta Go" is an ancient philosophy that still resonates to this day.
Biblical scholars claim that the Gotta Go movement has its origins in the Old Testament days. Translated from the original Greek, "gotta go" actually means "got to go." As in when Moses spoke to God and beseeched him, "Yo, Lord. My people, they got to go. Let them go, Oh Lord." Moses and his tribe then escaped Egypt and spent 40 years wandering around the desert in search of the Promised Land.
Today, the saying still has currency in our modern-day culture. Consider the classic Jim Reeves' song, 'He'll Have to Get the Hell Outta Here.'
"Put your sweet lips, a little closer to the phone.
Let's pretend that we're together all alone.
I'll tell the man to turn the juke-box way down low.
And you can tell your friend there with you, he's GOTTA GO."
'Gotta go.'
Life is like that sometimes, isn't it?
You're born. And before you even start kindergarten, you've spent at least three years of your parents holding you up in the air, looking into your eyes and asking "Gotta go? Gotta go?" before plopping you down on a toilet until you do.
As you get older, there are other occassions when you are told you gotta go. Like after standing for three hours behind the velvet rope once at Studio 54. Or that time you puked during a lap-dance at your brother's stag. Or that time you were dating Jim Reeves chick.
But as you grow older, you start to fear the phrase 'Gotta Go' more and more. You suspect that you may be asked to leave the party early.
That happened to me the other day. Went for my annual physical. The results - NO CANCER! Prostate is fine, colon is fine, pancreas is fine and testicles are not only fine, they're spectacular!
After the examination, I took off my gown that does up in the back, looked in the mirror and saw the Grim Reaper staring right back at me. I looked him in the eye, laughed and then told him, "Not this time! This time, YOU gotta go."
I may not have been able to say that without the strength I've derived from those Toyota 'Gotta Go' radio commercials.
Possibly it may be because of what you *don't* hear in those ads. All you hear is the narrator yelling at different Toyotas of all different shapes, prices and colours that they've got to go.
But he occassionally mentions 'Murray,' presumably one of his co-workers. The thing is, you never actually hear from Murray. At least not audibly. And as such, you have to wonder, does he physically really exist?
Themeaticly, 'Murray' may very well be serving the same purpose as Norm's wife on 'Cheers.' Or the never-fully seen philisophical gabby next-door-neighbour on 'Home Improvement.'
Perhaps 'Murray' is just a metaphor for something else. Something that only Moses and Jim Reeves might be able to tell us. Is he really the narrator's conscience? Is he God?
Or is 'Murray' simply that thing within all of us? The thing that lets us know the difference between right and wrong?
I'm starting to think that's possibly exactly what those Toyota radio commercials are really all about. It has nothing to do with selling cars.
Consider this quote from the narrator in the very last ad - "Murray, let's start the day off with a nice hot mug of Gotta Go."
Life is sometimes like that, isn't it?
For those of you unaware of the latest Toyota radio-only commercials and those who don't listen to AM all day long, the "Gotta Go" advertising campaign is ostensibly about how the narrator (a Toyota car dealership employee,) is telling all the 2008 Toyotas on the lot that they "gotta go," in order to make room for the 2009 models. As such, dealers are dropping their prices like crazy! They're practically giving them away! Because all those Toyotas on the lot just gotta go.
To the non-discerning ear, it's just another annoying radio commercial. Sort of on a par with the new 'Crabby Joes' spots. And sure, superficially, it's just a gimmick for a clearance sale to sell Toyotas.
But the reality is that "Gotta Go" is an ancient philosophy that still resonates to this day.
Biblical scholars claim that the Gotta Go movement has its origins in the Old Testament days. Translated from the original Greek, "gotta go" actually means "got to go." As in when Moses spoke to God and beseeched him, "Yo, Lord. My people, they got to go. Let them go, Oh Lord." Moses and his tribe then escaped Egypt and spent 40 years wandering around the desert in search of the Promised Land.
Today, the saying still has currency in our modern-day culture. Consider the classic Jim Reeves' song, 'He'll Have to Get the Hell Outta Here.'
"Put your sweet lips, a little closer to the phone.
Let's pretend that we're together all alone.
I'll tell the man to turn the juke-box way down low.
And you can tell your friend there with you, he's GOTTA GO."
'Gotta go.'
Life is like that sometimes, isn't it?
You're born. And before you even start kindergarten, you've spent at least three years of your parents holding you up in the air, looking into your eyes and asking "Gotta go? Gotta go?" before plopping you down on a toilet until you do.
As you get older, there are other occassions when you are told you gotta go. Like after standing for three hours behind the velvet rope once at Studio 54. Or that time you puked during a lap-dance at your brother's stag. Or that time you were dating Jim Reeves chick.
But as you grow older, you start to fear the phrase 'Gotta Go' more and more. You suspect that you may be asked to leave the party early.
That happened to me the other day. Went for my annual physical. The results - NO CANCER! Prostate is fine, colon is fine, pancreas is fine and testicles are not only fine, they're spectacular!
After the examination, I took off my gown that does up in the back, looked in the mirror and saw the Grim Reaper staring right back at me. I looked him in the eye, laughed and then told him, "Not this time! This time, YOU gotta go."
I may not have been able to say that without the strength I've derived from those Toyota 'Gotta Go' radio commercials.
Possibly it may be because of what you *don't* hear in those ads. All you hear is the narrator yelling at different Toyotas of all different shapes, prices and colours that they've got to go.
But he occassionally mentions 'Murray,' presumably one of his co-workers. The thing is, you never actually hear from Murray. At least not audibly. And as such, you have to wonder, does he physically really exist?
Themeaticly, 'Murray' may very well be serving the same purpose as Norm's wife on 'Cheers.' Or the never-fully seen philisophical gabby next-door-neighbour on 'Home Improvement.'
Perhaps 'Murray' is just a metaphor for something else. Something that only Moses and Jim Reeves might be able to tell us. Is he really the narrator's conscience? Is he God?
Or is 'Murray' simply that thing within all of us? The thing that lets us know the difference between right and wrong?
I'm starting to think that's possibly exactly what those Toyota radio commercials are really all about. It has nothing to do with selling cars.
Consider this quote from the narrator in the very last ad - "Murray, let's start the day off with a nice hot mug of Gotta Go."
Life is sometimes like that, isn't it?
posted by Sonny Drysdale at 12:22 PM
5 Comments:
I wonder at the 'Gotta Go' man's life at home. Does he have love in his marriage? Or does he live alone in a bachelor apartment filled with self help tapes and mirrors? Does he get up each morning, realize he's still slogging import cars in a dying economy,and mutter 'Gotta go', thinking this is the year he goes into hock and gets into the MBA program at Western? Or does he go and look at that noose he keeps in the bedroom, the one he keeps beside his old favourite Playboys from the Seventies?
I worry for the Gotta Go man. He needs therapy. And I need to stop listening to AM Radio.
After work the Gotta Go guy and Murray hang out at Crabby Joes where they constantly rib Crabby about his $5.95 T-bone steak specials - "Hey, Crabby - who's the marketing genius who thought that one up?"
The Gotta Go guy has never had a gloomy thought in his life. Hence, neither a self-reflective one.
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The made a short documentary about Gotta Go Guy.
Seriously. That's him.
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