Toyota’s Stuck In The Mud
Posted by prdude | Posted in Crisis Communications, Reputation Management | Posted on 03-02-2010
Tags: Crisis Communications, Toyota
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In an episode of Mad Men last season, a former client comes to Sterling Cooper because its dog food product made with horse meat became public. It became a public relations nightmare for the company. Even though all dog food products including those made by its competitors was made with horse meat, it no longer mattered. The public had formed its opinion and it wouldn’t be swayed. Don Draper and Roger Sterling put it bluntly to the client that the name was done. It’s been poisoned.
That was fiction. Toyota’s crisis is all too real. Is the Toyota name done? After decades of developing a carefully crafted message that Toyota vehicles were safe and superior to American cars, this recall can destroy all that.
Suzy Welch put it best in a tweet below:
Do you think the Toyota name is poisoned like the fictional company in Mad Men? Share what you think.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by MotorTorque: Should Toyota change its name due to negative publicity? http://ow.ly/13Ndn...
I kind of feel If Toyota had a better presence in community media like Ford @scottmonty or GM Chris Barger they may have come out of this better. I love Toyotas. I will continue to drive them. If you have ever driven in rural roads in India anything else is safe
( just joking in case any other drivers from India read this LOL) My best info about this crisis came from two places. My friend at Fitzmall Toyota Harmeet Suri who called me just to let me know about this and the email I got from Fitzmall about the precautions you can take in case you ever had accelerator issues. That info is useful even without a recall – imagine something falls off the seat or dashboard (bottle of water) and gets stuck in the accelerator in which case it will be good to know what to do.
Bottomline Toyota please add a social media component to your communications and PR program and have them ready even when there is no crisis and have them tuned in to new community media. Believe me I know http://bit.ly/6DY8dE
Once this is over this will be a good time to buy a Toyota- they will be cheaper and they will be even more reliable since the company cann0pt afford to make any mistakes.
Shashi
Ps: This is my own opinion and not that of my day job or employer Network Solutions or its clients or partners
As a loyal Toyota consumer, I believe Toyota still has a significant amount of brand equity and should not change its name. To me, that would be an unnecessary knee-jerk reaction. I, for one, still remain loyal to Toyota because I think Toyota President Jim Lentz has done a great job in handling the crisis. In an interview on NPR, he responded very well to some tough questions. For instance, is this fix enough to make the cars safe? He pointed out that he drives a Toyota; his family drives Toyota; and his friends and neighbors drive Toyota. If he didn’t believe the cars were safe, then he wouldn’t risk his own life and the lives of his loved ones by driving them. His answer was a great way of personalizing the company. I know I’m not alone in my loyalty to Toyota either. In a related NPR story, a correspondent interviewed dealers and customers about the crisis. One of the customers had turned in her Toyota that was part of the recall, but then she turned around and purchased another Toyota that was not part of the recall. Now, that’s customer loyalty. All companies are going to face some type of crisis at one time or another. It’s how they handle it that will determine whether it will irreparably harm the brand in the long-term. It’s what I always tell my kids when they make mistakes: “It’s not our mistakes that define us, but how we deal with them.”
Toyota will crawl (and claw!) their way out of this – but it will take time. It’s clear their PR team was kept in the dark by upper management – as just now their crisis communications is kicking in. Here are my thoughts on the matter: http://bit.ly/b4ysnd
So far, in its response, Toyota has done everything wrong. In fact, it’s turned itself into a text-book case for PR 101. That said, if they manage to mend their PR ways, providing honest, clear answers for customers, I believe they can turn things around.
They could tell the “true story” through a TV/YouTube campaign, with customers testifying to their quelled worries and fixed vehicles.
It would take time, years, for sure, but I think they’d want to keep that longtime trusted name: Toyota.
Oh my goodness, no, no and no. Toyota should not change its name. The saying “a rose by any other name” comes to mind here. Toyota is a giant. Yes it has taken them a considerable amount of time to get to the “top” and just a short time for them to come crashing down, but the equity in their (what was) good name does have the ability to move beyond this brand nightmare (IMHO). I drive a Toyota (fortunately not one of the recalled models), and I love it. They make a good (ok, boring) cars and they can do so again. Consider me the optimist, but changing the Toyota name will do no good. If anything, I think it would belittle the intelligence of its customers and potential customers and do even worse damage.
Not at all…Toyota is a strong brand and despite this one hiccup many of you still attest to the promise behind the brand. I agree with Allan Shadow however, this presents an ideal case for PR 101. I always stress the importance of building your ‘reputational’ capital (before hand) so that when crises like these arise, your public are in a better position to understand and accept you and it gives you more control over how your public perceives you.
Jumping to a name change would be a ridiculous leap by a respected automaker. Lest we forget, Ford Explorers have flipped and GM cars and trucks, are, well, GM cars and trucks. It never ceases to amaze me that organizations can respond so slowly in times of crisis. Toyota, no doubt, did not handle this well. The decent job Jim Lentz did in trying to recover was undone by the Prius brake problem. However, all they can do is look ahead. Full transparency (are there other potential issues bubbling under the surface?) and a well-planned communications strategy – with a focus on a quick-delivery through social media – would help. The question is – will they respond to their loyal customer base and make proper fixes or stumble around and watch their brand suffer further erosion?
No, Toyota should not change its name. There’s something about food recalls and the resulting deaths from listeria that have put me off Maple Leaf forever. However, in Toyota’s case, my impression is that it wasn’t sloppiness and/or negligence, as it seemed to be in the case with Maple Leaf. And, what major auto brand hasn’t had a recall? As consumers, we are usually forgiving, depending on how the brand responds to the crisis.
[...] One post by a public relations guy who writes anonymously under his Twitter handle @PRdude asks: “Should Toyota change its name?” And suggesting a name change may be the nicest thing a blogger is saying about [...]
It’s quite a good analogy with the dog food company – their issue was that its products are made out of horse meat but then again so were all of the competitors!
Toyota’s issue is that they are implementing a recall – so do all of their competitors!
For example Ford had a major recall of 4.5 million vehicles in October 2009 but there was very little coverage about it… http://www.driving.ca/news/story.html?id=2100105