Surely you’ve seen the TV-ad with a concerned mother whose son plays football… Loud crashing sounds are featured and lines are drawn surrounding the impact of a tackle at football practice.
The commercial spotlights the way Toyota is sharing their collision research with scientists researching football concussions. Victory Toyota thought the ad was pretty neat, showing the great things Toyota technology is doing for communities.
So why is this news?
Well, turns out the NFL was not very happy with the message the commercial was sending (maybe the dangers of concussions in professional football is still a sensitive subject?). Since its original airing in November, the ad has been edited to a mother concerned about her son ‘playing sports’–eliminating the focus on football, and the scene with the helmets colliding has been completely removed, reports the New York Times.
This commercial was one part of Toyota’s “Ideas for Good” campaign which showed different ways car-safety research could help advance other fields. The New York Times report said “the tackle in the Toyota ad is not perfectly clear but resembles a typical runner and tackler making relatively routine, though dangerous, contact.”
Maybe concussions do apply to other sports, but for the NFL to bully Toyota into changing the ad so they could hold onto a better public image and the support of football watchers and parents who support their children playing football, that just shows how influential the League is.
Want to see the original video, without the NFL’s changes? Check it out below:
Either way, the ad change doesn’t mean that Toyota is no longer sharing their safety research with other fields. Toyota still is pursuing Ideas for Good– like how to use car ventilation technology to ventilate medical tents after a natural disaster, see the video below:
And for your own research on Toyota, come on over to our Seaside showroom and test drive your own Toyota today!
