Toyota just inked a deal, becoming the official auto partner of The Voice, NBC’s reality singing competition, for the two forthcoming seasons. The automaker has replaced Nissan, who was previously the exclusive auto sponsor of The Voice for the past four seasons. Kia has also been a past sponsor.
As part of the agreement, Toyota is capitalizing on NBC Universal’s Snapchat advertising, and is the first company to jump into this venture. As such, the company will be sponsoring the show’s ‘Snapchat story’, which will be five short-form videos that showcase performances that have been submitted by users. Based on these, the coaches of The Voice will choose a contestant to appear on the very first episode broadcast of the show.
The deal between NBCU and Snapchat was developed this past August to create original content for the social media site. NBCU is also developing this type of content for SNL and Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, including others. This partnership includes an advertising component where NBCU can sell Snapchat ads within its packages.
According to Dan Lovinger, NBCU, other factors with The Voice/Toyota deal are being finalized, still these will likely be around relaying stories of contestants. The financials around the partnership were not offered.
Auto News Today this isn’t the first time Toyota has been involved with new and emerging artists. For over ten years now, thanks to the Toyota Music Platform, they have fostered partnerships with music festivals, concert series, and other programs in support of searching for great music.
Nissans’ move to not renegotiate its deal with The Voice is due to the company’s focus on College 100 program, ABC and ESPN, the Heisman House campaign/Heisman Trophy Trust, as well as a new agreement with Lucas Film as it relates to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
The Voice kicked off season 11 on September 19th, where artists Alicia Keys and the ever-controversial Miley Cyrus joined Blake Shelton and Adam Levine as judges. The show continues to be a highly rated television program, and recently won a Primetime Emmy, however, ratings have begun to lag as of late. Its season finale this past May was viewed by over 10 million, but was down by eight percent from the previous finale in 2015.
