In a recent Mom Column on RyanGlanzer.com, she ranted about the painstakingly annoying Toyota commercial featuring a remake of “Saved by Zero” by 80s rockers The Fixx. Prior to her rant, I’d never really been bothered by the commercial, or even noticed it. But since then, I can’t turn on the TV without seeing it every commercial break, and now that I’m thinking about how much Mom hates it, I have also grown to hate the 30-second ad for 0% APR financing on a dozen models of Toyota vehicles.
I did a little investigating the other day and found that not only does Mom find it annoying, but it’s considered one of the most annoying commercials ever made. TIME magazine had a full story about the ad. Facebook groups have sprung up with thousands of people bashing the ad. Even The Fixx commented on their hatred for the ad, and they were paid handsomely for their song being used in it!
Toyota’s marketing department’s response? “I’m sorry everyone didn’t like it,” said Joe Tetherow. Sorry that everyone didn’t like it? It sounds like every TV viewer and radio listener in America outside of the Toyota marketing department didn’t like it! It’s actually become historically bad, topping “all-time worst” lists and even has a petition to pull it from the airwaves.
Yet, somehow, the ad is working.
Toyota has pounded that song into the heads of everyone in the country (and beyond, probably) so hard, so often, that the message behind the song is actually getting through, probably to the hearing-impaired who can only see the big red zero bouncing around the screen. The 0% thing turns out to actually be a good deal, and sales for Toyota seem to have rebounded somewhat from October, when the company saw its worst decline for a single month ever at 23%.
The end is near, thankfully. Toyota’s 0% offer only lasts through November, so in ten days, it’s off the airwaves. But that still means a full Thanksgiving vacation with increased TV viewing, and that means we’ll all hear “Saved by Zero” a few hundred more times.
But the real question I have for Mom is what she finds more annoying—Saved by Zero, or Saved by the Bell? She always did hate Screech and the gang.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 
I will not be near a TV on Sunday afternoon if there is a football game on. That seems to be their favorite venue for showing this horrible, disgusting, annoying, suicide inducing commercial. But, as you stated, it has caught everyone’s attention, good or bad, and that’s what a commercial is supposed to do. I thought the poor sap that came up with that ad was standing in line at an unemployment office, but perhaps he’s laughing all the way to the bank!