Toyota creates Back to the Future Day film – Content24

Welcome to Content24. Why is it different? Because it’s a digest of the stories that have made an impact over the past 24 hours, and not just a platform for recycled content marketing. Today we’re looking at Back to the Future Day and Facebook

Toyota makes Back to the Future film

Today is Back to the Future Day. In case you’re unaware, or simply weren’t around in the Eighties, it commemorates the moment when Marty McFly travels to 21 October, 2015 for the film’s 1989 sequel.

A number of brands have taken advantage of this, but our favourite is probably this film by Toyota.

Despite the fact that the film used a DeLorean – possibly the coolest-looking but most impractical car ever made – Toyota has brought out a five-minute video to mark the occasion. It features both Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox talking about the technological advances predicted in the film.

Essentially, Back to the Future Day revolves around the ideas that have made it to reality. Tele-conferencing – the likes of Skype and Hangouts – is just one example. Another, slightly more dubious innovation, is the hoverboard. This was developed by Toyota-subsidiary Lexus.

The Toyota film is a nice get-together with the two main actors from the original movie. The brand tie-in is the Mr Fusion fuel generator that uses rubbish, which Toyota has re-created. Sadly, it’s in one of its own cars that, nice though it is, is hardly a DeLorean.

Brands using Back to the Future Day for content marketing is textbook calendar strategy. The need to think like a newsdesk and anticipate notable events is something we’ve covered in previous FirstWord stories.

For more brand antics on Back to the Future Day. 

Facebook brings Facebook Instant forward

Four months after its launch, Facebook is pushing on with its Facebook Instant trial to iPhone users.

In essence, Instant allows publications to publish articles directly to the site and seems to be aimed primarily at mobile. Among the benefits are greater access to Facebook members, faster downloads of content such as video and the ability to design your own portal. Importantly, the traffic and the ad revenue go to the title. If you’re interested in more, we wrote about this earlier this year.

Publishers to get on board include the Guardian and the New York Times.

Despite concerns about putting content on a platform you don’t actually own, there seems to be growing enthusiasm to do so. Recently, Nescafé announced it was moving its site to Yahoo’s Tumblr, citing better mobile integration as one of the reasons.

For those able to use it, Instant could put brands on a par with publications – with huge potential impact for audience reach. If you are both using the same site and technology, the only differentiator would be the quality of the work.