Toyota x Hatsune Miku Collaboration

In 2012, Toyota collaborated with Hatsune Miku for the Toyota Big Air event. In January of 2012, they began selling limited-edition "Toyota Big Air x Hatsune Miku" tickets. Over 3000 sets of these tickets ended up being sold from major subway stations in Sapporo. Additionally, the first 1000 attendees at the actual event site received a further "Toyota Big Air x Hatsune Miku" original collaboration sticker. Toyota later helped sponsor Hatsune Miku's U.S. concert debut at Anime Expo in July 2012.

Initial Advertisement

Prior to the official launch of the campaign, Hatsune Miku appeared in two Toyota online advertisements in May that promoted the 2011 Toyota Corolla. In the beginning, Toyota had been the ones who had approached Crypton for use of Hatsune Miku and the right to display her on the official Toyota page. Hatsune Miku then promoted the Toyota Corolla in a series of advertisements and the car was crowned “the official car of Hatsune Miku”.
One of the music videos, "Dream Harmonic" that was posted on Toyota's website, Facebook and YouTube channel received more than one million views in less than three weeks.

Though not an official tagline, one of the reasons given for the collaboration was that both "Toyota Corolla and Hatsune Miku realize big dreams in compact packages."

MikuScape Event

After the event’s huge success, an additional meet-and-greet event called MikuScape, was held in celebration on September 16, California. At the event, Toyota celebrated the launch of their Corolla model and Hatsune Miku’s AR (augmented reality) experience, where users will be able to view Hatsune Miku singing and dancing in 3D alongside the 2011 Corolla.
For those not in attendance, Toyota allowed fans to download the target image from their website as well as the Toyota Shopping Tool App (both are no longer available). By using the camera on the smartphone, the same AR experience could be achieved. The app also allowed for instant access to any brand-new Toyota release as well as a VIN Barcode Scanner.

Awards

Later, the Association of National Advertisers' annual Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference awarded the Toyota advertisement featuring Miku with the
Multicultural Excellence Award in November 2011. The Toyota x Hatsune Miku campaign successfully won the award in the digital media category. Hector Vallejo, a judge at the event, said the video was "very relevant, very hip, and very targeted and culturally relevant to young Asian Americans."

Commercials and Fan Reaction

Advertising for the May 2011 collaboration was in the form of a series of commercials featuring Hatsune Miku. The series of commercials covered the journey of Hatsune Miku's arrival in the United States.
The first commercial featured Miku driving the new Corolla before stepping out onto a red carpet event with paparazzi furiously taking photos. Initial fan reaction was mixed due to having a 16-year-old girl driving alone.
The second commercial has Miku missing from her video shoot and her assistant searches everywhere for her before finding her in an underground carpark sleeping inside the car. Fans were mildly upset with the assistant whispering, "the perfect place for a diva" since there was no correlation with carparks and being a musician. They were additionally puzzled over the fact that Miku snored incredibly loudly.
In the third commercial, one of her personal assistants tells Miku to try out a bacon-wrapped hot dog. Fans were disappointed that Miku's reaction was extremely positive towards junk food and though it is not officially canon, a majority of fans always thought she ate healthily and was even a vegetarian.
For the penultimate commercial, Miku purchases the bacon-wrapped hot dog. While still holding similar opinions over the previous commercial, the general discussion among fans was more centered on how ridiculous this commercial was, in particular, in advertising a car as there was no mention of Toyota or the Corolla.
Finally, in the last commercial, a 3D animator gives Hatsune Miku a comical mustache much to her disapproval. In general, fans felt that this commercial was the best of the entire series as it was whimsical, but not entirely off-brand for the character. Once again, there was little to no reference to the Toyota or Corolla brands, leading to confusion among viewers.

References

Anime News Network - Toyota's U.S. Hatsune Miku Ads Win Award
Motor Authority - 2011 Toyota Corolla Fans Love Virtual Pop Star Hatsune Miku
Toyota Announces ‘MikuScape,’
Toyota Corolla Helps Debut Virtual Pop Diva Hatsune Miku to U.S. Market - PR NewsWire