For 30 years, Toyota has been the automotive market leader in South Africa but it needed to expand its market share in the small hatch and sedan categories. This paper demonstrates how Toyota successfully launched the Yaris model and increased its market share in these categories, without losing the traditional values of the brand or its loyal customers. The communications strategy was to epitomise the Yaris model as a symbol of ambition, achievement and success in order to connect with both the new generation of young South Africans and Toyota's traditional older market. The success of this campaign exceeded Toyota's 2005 sales targets by 47 per cent and 2006 targets by 16 per cent