Toyota. Still the brand in front?
The world’s biggest car manufacturer brand by volume – Toyota – (ranked eighth place in Interbrand’s 2009 Top Global brands) is wrestling with an increasingly flawed brand image.
Having identified issues with components in certain vehicles, the brand has recalled 8million vehicles worldwide.
In Europe, so far 28 reported cases of problems with vehicles have been identified.
Responding, Toyota recalled 1.8 million vehicles.
(In the UK ten thousand drivers contacted Toyota in the first few days of the recall announcement).
According to Toyota’s UK spokesperson Scott Brownlee, component issues were identified back in October 2009 (USA) and November 2009 (UK).
However the brand had played down complaints of unintended acceleration.
(In the US and Japan reports emerged of faulty brakes on its Prius hybrid car).
The branding challenge
The problem with a brand ‘staying low’ over rumours strategy is that the more it remains silent over a swelling rumour, the greater the buzz which powers the mill of suspicion; leading eventually to consumers assuming the worse.
In any crisis, people need leadership: an official seen to be doing something positive, practical and immediate to resolve the crises.
According to Reuters, initially Toyota President Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company’s founder, had not formally addressed the public or media on the recall problems.
It wasn’t until Tuesday 2nd February that an executive from Toyota HQ appeared to face the public.
On January 31st 2010, major US newspapers alerted consumers to the recall and production shutdown.
This was followed by Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA ,apologising on national TV.
The UK brand
Meanwhile in the UK, where Toyota has 1.6 million cars on the roads, over 180,000 vehicles are potentially affected by defective accelerator pedals.
Toyota advised that any driver in the UK who had suffered a problem with with sticking or jamming accelerator pedals should call the company’s hotline, and should not get the problem fixed independently.
Appropriate parts required to repair the cars are scheduled to arrive in UK for repairs to begin around 10 February.
The accelerator pedal problem involves seven of Toyota’s brand models: Q, Aygo, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Avensis and Verso.
No new cars are affected
UK RECALLED MODELS
February 2005 – August 2009 AYGO
November 2008 – November 2009 iQ
November 2005 – September 2009 Yaris
October 2006 – 5 January 2010 Auris
October 2006 – December 2009 Corolla
February 2009 – 5 Jan 2010 Verso
November 2008 – December 2009 Avensis
Working with the UK’s official agency
The brand is collaborating with the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and will write to car owners whose vehicles may be affected – a process that could take 10 days.
A Toyota website is also being launched to enable owners to check their vehicles registration number.
This will also include owners bought cars second-hand.
The business view
Toyota’s posted a third quarter profit of 153 billion yen ($1.68bn, £1.06bn) after a loss of $1.81bn in the previous quarter.
Toyota’s shares dropped to a 10-month low in Tokyo’s Wednesday trading.
Whilst the company estimated it would lose about $2bn (£1.23bn) in recall costs and lost sales, the brand is still expected sales to boost to 7.18 million in the next financial year.
It added it had not yet worked out the cost of the latest reports of problems with the new Prius.
Jonathan Gabay
www.brandforensics.co.uk
Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 8:57 amand is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
