The 24 hours of Le Mans is the battleground for cutting-edge hybrid technology. In this race, Toyota is developing its unique “energy recovery system”, which has also contributed to the improvement of mass-production cars. However, this technology was a term only for racing geeks and too complicated to explain to the general public.
Toyota organized a live event named “TOYOTA BARISTA”. A racing car which was brought into the venue ran through a virtual Le Mans circuit and recovered the energy, then the recovered energy was utilized to power cooking appliances. The amount of recovered energy was demonstrated by serving breakfast to 171 people.
Over 180 media articles in 20 countries covered this news. The movie that filmed this event was played over 3 million times on YouTube in 212 countries. Toyota dealers also utilized this film globally to increase showroom traffic. Social concern toward hybrid technology was raised through publicity for this campaign. And as a result, the new model of the mass-production hybrid car Prius received 5 times more pre-orders than expected.