Gemba was engaged to by Toyota Australia to coordinate and generate entries into the 12th Toyota Dream Car Art Contest. The annual drawing competition is part of a global Toyota initiative to engage children up to 15 years of age from all corners of the globe and let their imaginations run wild.
In Australia, children were encouraged to draw their ‘Dream Car’ to go into the running to win some awesome prizes, including a trip to Japan! The competition opened in October 2017, just in time for the upcoming Summer holidays, and ran all the way until March 2018. This year, over 4000 of tomorrow’s young engineers, designers and creative thinkers participated in the contest, making it the most successful Toyota Dream Car Art Contest in Australia ever!
The competition was supported through partnerships with Faber-Castell, Cool Australia and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, all of which worked to amplify the campaign. Faber-Castell provided product as a participation incentive for schools as well as Toyota Dealerships, and Cool Australia helped us connect with a huge database of teachers. Through well-thought out lesson plans, students from Prep to Year 9 could get involved with the Art Contest in their English, Art or Design classrooms. In 2018, Gemba, Toyota and Cool Australia ensured that these lesson plans challenged students to apply creative thinking to global issues. The result – a huge and very impressive proportion of entries demonstrated imaginative solutions to environmental and social problems.
During the competition period, over 4,500 lesson plans were downloaded by 810 teachers, reaching a total of 37,260 students across Australia. Independent research by Cool Australia found that there was an increase in student awareness and behaviour about how to make the world a better place by using creative thinking as a result of the competition activity. Cool Australia further drove participation through social posts and eDMs.
Gemba also leveraged Toyota’s partnership with the Powerhouse Museum to create a bespoke Dream Car drawing space within the museum itself, giving patrons the opportunity to participate in the competition. A ‘Dream Car’ was also incorporated into the Future Park’s exhibit both digitally and as a 3D template that children could print-out and create. This activity helped to position Toyota Australia as a leader in innovation and represent the future vision of the brand to current and prospective guests. It also helped to drum up some entries in the school summer holidays!
Participation was further encouraged through tapping into Toyota’s portfolio of ambassadors and their children, organically promoting the competition through image posts on their social channels. Jonathan Brown, Johnathan Thurston, Guy Sebastian, Luke Hodge and others generated reach well over 5 million through their content.
9 winners were chosen (3 from each of the age groups: under-8, 8-11 and 12-15 years old), and from these entries, the Australian champion will be decided in June 2018. This lucky artist will be off to Japan to meet other contest winners from all around the world.
The Cultural Understanding Car’ by G.Fields (8 – 11 years old)
The Flying Stork’ by V.Khanolkhar (12 – 15 years old)
From a Gemba perspective, we effectively utilised many touchpoints to promote a really great initiative, resulting in a very successful first year. We can’t wait to see what ‘Dream Cars’ will be created in the 13th Toyota Dream Car Art Contest!