Toyota Enlists Bad Lip Reading For A Series Of Commercials

Toyota, like many other companies, understands the power of online video stars as spokespeople, but the influencer it has turned to for one of its recent campaigns is not exactly a typical brand partner. The enigmatic creator of the popular Bad Lip Reading (BLR) videos teamed up with the automaker for a series of humorously-dubbed commercials.

Three of Toyota’s BLR videos are available on the company’s YouTube channel. In each one, the BLR creator — who is believed to work in the music industry, though his identity has never been publicly revealed — adds some nonsensical copy to the script before ceding the floor so that Toyota can “talk about the car.”

What makes Bad Lip Reading such a great channel is its ability to recontextualize serious subject matter in a silly, farcical manner. Since Toyota’s commercials don’t have an initial reference point that viewers can connect to, their jokes — while funny — don’t have quite the same level of brilliant absurdism as a typical BLR entry. For fans of BLR videos, however, Toyota’s new ads are at least more fun that the typical 30-second spot. Will they launch a branded content career for the creator behind YouTube’s most famous dubs? One would think the NFL should call him next.