Lentz defending the brand in front of the headlines
Ahead of Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda taking his seat in Congress on 24th February to discuss the global recall of vehicles, the company’s formidable US head James Lentz has admitted to failing to promptly respond to information provided.
He said:
“It has taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but serious set of safety issues, despite all of our good faith efforts.
“The problem has also been compounded by poor communications both within our company and with regulators and consumers.”
Continuing:
“In the case of sticking accelerator pedals, we failed to promptly analyse and respond to information emerging from Europe and in the United States.”
Lentz is expected to be the first Toyota executive to be cross-examined by Congress.
Following an initial examination of documents provided by Toyota, Congress Committee chairman Henry Waxman highlighted reservations:
• Toyota “consistently dismissed” the odds that electronic failures could be responsible for acceleration problems.
• Toyota’s public statements about the adequacy of its recent recalls appear to be “misleading”.
• The report that Toyota commissioned to consider potential electronic problems appears to include “serious flaws” and the company was too slow in initiating it.
Bottom line results
Toyota said on 23rd March that global sales were 15% higher in January than a year ago.
Domestic sales jumped 45%, while overseas sales rose nearly 9%.
However, Toyota shares fell 0.5% to 3,325 yen, ahead of the US hearings.
Bowing to public opinion
Using advertising to restore lustre
Toyota’s president has already faced an angry Japanese media that vilified him for not bowing profoundly enough at recent press conferences.
Working in tandem with the new PR push designed to manage public perception surrounding the Congressional hearings, Marketing Week magazine reported that Toyota published full-page adverts designed to restore confidence.
The full-page print ad carries the line ‘We’re pulling together to put things right’, and stresses that the company has 10,000 employees trying to rectify the situation.
It claims that of the 300 UK automotive recalls in the past two years only four have affected Toyota. It also refers to the training of over 1,100 Toyota technicians to repair the vehicles.
Brand trust can Toyota's campaign pull it off?
The ad says:
“At Toyota, building safe cars for the UK is what we have been doing for over 40 years – and we are committed to continuing that legacy for decades to come.”
The advert thanks customers and authorities for help and patience during the recall process.
The Canadian perspective
Meanwhile Toyota Canada launched a nationwide media campaign to assure Canadian consumers that the brand is working to alleviate concerns.
Representatives from the brand’s Canadian division will travel across Canada, to demonstrate why thousands of cars have been recalled in Canada and what is being done to fix them.
Stephen Beatty, managing director of Toyota Canada told CBC News:
“One of the things that’s really important for us is to try to distinguish some of the news coverage that’s coming out of the US about US issues that really don’t apply to vehicles here in Canada.”
“In the short term, have we caused people concern? I’m sure we have, and nobody wants to do that.”
“…I think down the road, people are going to look back on this and say, ‘Did they take care of me properly?’ and if the answer is yes, then I think that people will understand that Toyota has behaved in this situation exactly the way that they expect Toyota to behave.”
To boost sales further it is reported that Toyota is offering customers incentives and warranties.
Earlier in the month, James Lentz used Web 2.0 to restore confidence with the wider blog and Twittersphere.
embedded by Embedded Video
Last week the company released an advertisement featured on YouTube also designed to return faith with the brand.
Drivers, commentators, marketers, spin-doctors and competitors will all no doubt be listening to the congressional proceedings with great interest.
Jonathan Gabay
www.brandforensics.co.uk
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 2:52 pmand is filed under Misc, Toyota brand, Toyota branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
