Nimble as a Mouse

Advertiser:	Toyota New Zealand
Creative Agency:	Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand
Added:	14 May 2010

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Copywriter: Matthew Page

Art Director: Carolyn Davis

ECD: Dylan Harrison

Director: Leo Woodhead

Producer: Nick Beachman

Production Company: Thick as Thieves

Editor: Ian Bennett

Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand has released a campaign for Toyota iQ, the world's smallest four seater.

Saatchi & Saatchi had the idea to turn the car into a mouse, so it could move a cursor on a giant screen and operate a computer.

The idea posed a technological challenge. At the time, there were ways to track a car’s movements. But there was no known method for turning the car into a fully functioning mouse, with the ability to click, draw and drag. So working with a web developer, the agency devised custom software to make it possible.

The feat required a large indoor space, a web cam, two laptops, an LED for the car, and a projection screen.

The camera tracked the light on the car and translated its position into X-Y co-ordinates. The first laptop sent these co-ordinates to the second laptop 30 times per second. The second laptop read these co-ordinates and moved its mouse cursor in real-time. That image was then projected onto the large screen.

Then, before an exclusive audience, the iQ operated a giant computer to design its own newspaper ad, complete with webcam photo, mouse-drawn logo and a copy line, which was typed using a virtual keyboard.

The live event was shot and edited into a short film and a behind the scenes video.

reader comments

@steve It is indeed not completly the same idea. But it's pretty obvious what Saatchi NZ did here: Piggy back ride on the succes of iq font. I mean, seriously, just put the two movies next to each other. It's like they re-shot everything from iq font frame by frame. Must've been easy for the creatives to make the storyboard for this.
matt on 19-May-10 4:30AM
That's brilliant! Wonder where else that can be used. PC
Peeyoosh Chandra from Sydney on 18-May-10 1:36PM
The iQ Font was really cool. But making a typeface is not the same as becoming a fully functioning computer mouse. I actually think this is an awesome follow up to iQ Font. No-one has ever turned a car into a mouse before. It controls a computer remotely and makes its own ad. It even plays a keyboard. That's pretty awesome.
Steve from Australia on 18-May-10 10:47AM
ps. the iq font was a campaign made by Happiness Brussels and not by Saatchi.
matt on 17-May-10 6:02PM
this is a clear rip-off from a campaign done last year for toyota belgium where the iq created a typeface using the same technique. it's funny and shocking at the same time to see how blatantly they copied everything from the iq font campaign. http://vimeo.com/5233789 next time you guys should create a software for the iq where it thinks of its own ideas.
matt on 17-May-10 5:45PM
Cool, but the video was way to edited. It some of the "impressed" value away.
Tom McDonald from 127.0.0.1 on 17-May-10 12:54AM
How did you handle activating the mouse click function, for clicking & dragging? Brilliant ad, by the way!
Sean from Earth on 17-May-10 12:50AM
I was the technical guy on this. For anyone who calls fake, and I know there will be a few, that's why we've also released the code, which can be found on the iQ website ;)
Peter Mangin from Auckland, New Zealand on 16-May-10 3:22PM