Sneak ADtack charter member Steve Stein sent this helpful comment yesterday:

Ah, I forgot, but at 4 past the hour and half hour WBZ radio reminds me that I *hate* this kind of commercial – “Tomorrow’s Technology Today”: a Toyota ad produced to sound like a news story.

For another view, see Boston writer Joanne McNeil’s pointed post at Doublethink Online from four years ago.

McNeil:

Tomorrow’s Technology Today reports are “brought to you by Toyota” — but so is the news itself. A good half of the Boston radio station WBZ’s technology news segments are blatant advertisements for Toyota’s own progress “moving forward.”

The familiar intergalactic keyboard sound played most often before breaking news or traffic reports introduces each thirty-second segment. While the reports on weather satellites are pretty indistinguishable from any other kind of technology radio reporting, the segments on Toyota vehicles are straight from the PR department. “Most people know that Hybrid Synergy Drive vehicles get great mileage,” says the announcer, sounding no different than anyone WBZ would employ. “But what most people don’t know is they’ve got a lot of get-up-and-go.”

Even after all this time, the whole thing makes you want to, well, get-up-and-go.

John R. Carroll is media analyst for NPR's Here & Now and senior news analyst for WBUR in Boston. He also writes at Campaign Outsider and It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
John R. Carroll has 305 post(s) on Sneak Adtack