Hunter Gatherer: Prius Goes Plural

Posted by Brandon Lori

Prius Goes Plural — the latest piece by Hunter Gatherer — is a lighthearted homage to classic kids programming of the 70’s and 80’s. While chewing over the endless possibilities of naming conventions for the company’s latest car, the spot is aimed at quizzing grownups on the many inventive ways of naming the company’s newest slew of clunkers. Through grammar, rhyming, and basic arithmetic, the piece aims to teach while also entertain — a ground rule for a good educational short. Todd St. John, the director and founder of Hunter Gatherer, elaborates:

“This is a stop-motion piece created to help launch the ‘Prius goes Plural’ campaign. It is a teaser campaign letting people know that Prius will be introducing new models and so, what to call more than one Prius?. The campaign was conceived by Saatchi & Saatchi, LA, who asked us to help to illustrate the print component, and also to create an animation. A Schoolhouse Rock / Electric Company type of jingle was settled on as a way to illustrate the complexity of plurals in a funny way. Almost all animation was created in-camera with some additional post and clean-up work.”

Like memorable pre-school programming before it, the piece borrows from the tenets of that classic format — feeling old school, but still fresh. What’s more, today, the lessons it aims to teach a generation of grownups remind us how greatly effective those timeless kid-shorts can be, where sing along lessons that once made us laugh, learn, and grown can also be used to sell product.


Saatchi & Saatchi / LA
ECD: Mike McKay
CD: Ryan Jacobs
ACD/Art Director: Matt Titone
Copywriter: Andy Kadin, Nathan Dills
Designer: Zach Richter
Director of Integrated Production/Multimedia: Tanya LeSeiur
Senior Broadcast Producer: Kait Boehm
Associate Producer: Charlie Maas
Project Managers: Alexis Ross
Account Director: Keith Ellis
Account Executive: Nicole Buckley
Planning: Sara Bamossy
Business Affairs Manager: Krista Horn

Production Company: HunterGatherer
HunterGatherer Credits:
Director: Todd St. John
Producer: Brigid Boyle
Art Direction & Design: Todd St. John & Gary Benzel
Junior Designer: Leta Sobierajski
Animation: Todd St. John, Leta Sobierajski, Fabian Tejada
Models: Jeff Shepherd, Todd St. John, Leta Sobierajski, Max Strizitch, Sophia Janowitz
Music: Skyrmish