I bought a Toyota Corolla at the perfect time didn’t I?I got it last week and this week I thought I'd get to do a short public relations blog on Toyota, finding time to praise my car, Toyota in general and me for buying my car. Jeez. I was excited when the first thing I saw was that Toyota had a huge presence online. I typed Toyota Corolla on Google and got over a page of hits right away. The first site I tried in blogs about Toyota had me at a car search in 3 seconds flat. It wasn’t a blog, it was a sales pitch. A little deeper perhaps. I typed in Toyota Corolla on You Tube and sank.
Toyota on you tube: a whole lot of noise. Toyota is connected a horrible acceleration problem. Toyota recalled 8 million vehicles. I followed the line. Video of a horrible accident, photos of car crashes, harangues by angry owners. This was a public nightmare, a personal fear and yet a perfect subject for a blog about corporate presence online.
Toyota came from a place of great public relations and in their recent downfall and semi upswing became a poster child for public relations dos and don’ts. Toyota made good cars and had a great reputation. Sometimes things go wrong though and in a world where things go wrong and 6 billion people noticed, Toyota nearly blew it. The problem was an issue with unexpected acceleration in several of Toyota’s models. No one seemed to know why it was happening. Toyota initially blamed it on driver failure, and kept their response to the accidents very quiet in the years prior to 2009. However in 2009 there were crashes and camera phones and bad news went viral during an especially bad crash of an off duty police officer and his family. The next four or five months were chaotic for Toyota. There was an announcement that claimed no responsibility or very little and then another announcement which thought it might be some small problem with floor mats. The responses seemed typical of what any company might do- partition the blame until the nightmare gets resolved and Toyota was going to seem awkward and inapropriate no matter what they did.They were lambasted in Congressional hearings, scoffed at in the news and on you tube, and twitter. These people were losing serious ground publicly and financially. The company and their news environment were just too big and too fast.
I like to think of Feb 5, 2010 as Toyota’s turn around moment. There was an apology from the American president of Toyota on Feb 1 but it was so much more satisfying to have Mr. Toyota (yes, that is his name), the president of Toyota, apologize to everyone and especially all of his customers for all of the suffering he and his company had caused them and he wanted to let them know that he wanted to build their trust back in him and it was on you tube.
From that moment, Toyota has been publishing all owners twits requesting help and its responses positive and negative Toyota uses you tube to explain how the accelerator works, what may have gone wrong with it. Toyota post phone numbers and website addresses for questions,which is, if not being transparent, at least gives the impression of trying to be transparent. They keep blogs open and talk about what goes on with Toyota, although there is more of a sales pitch to the few I’ve glanced at.
One of Toyota’s genius movements has been to blanket youtube with very funny commercials, wry, self disparaging and interesting. It appeals to people who might buy Toyota: middle class individuals who understood they might be skewed. An especially funny you tube set of commercials used James Lipton playing to type
http://www.youtube.com/user/ToyotaUSA#g/c/910796CC399DFE37
So, how well did Toyota do in changing their corporate imagine in a year’s time? Prior to yesterday, I looked around you tube, and goggle, typing in Toyota, Toyota Corolla, and Toyota Corolla acceleration and got two negative hits out of seven. Pretty impressive results. Last night the results of the NASA study requested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that initially held Toyota responsible for the accidents based on beliefs that the acceleration was electronically involved were announced. According to NHTSA, there was no electronic involvement; Toyota had paid its dues in recalling cars, fixing the minor problems and paying fines. As far as they were concerned Toyota was off the hook.
Now comes an interesting lesson in corporate imagining. Last night and today had nothing but good news and validation for Toyota yet you tube is filled with bad publicity. The car crashes are back, and the angry owners as well. Unfortunately this is the fill in information connected to the news.
Toyota, so far has kept a pretty low profile, considering their insistence that it wasn’t anything electronic in the first place.They have proved they can handle the media so far. They know how to work with transparency, they know how to take responsibility, and they know how to work with humor and they really know how to work the boards in Google, Twitter, and You Tube. I’m curious as to what their next move will be in the stirred up hornets nest.
As for me, I still like my car but I'm going to do a lot more research. And I am going to ask about that accelerator pedal.
Ya it has been interesting watching toyota change their image over the last year. The accelerator pedal was such a huge debacle that people just came out of the woodwork trying to sue Toyota. They definitely had an accelerator problem, but some people were also trying to ride the gravy train as well. At least one person was caught lying ( Admitted he held down the accelerator).
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to still think Toyota is a safe car, but they're trying. They're also trying the "green" route as well. I still can't shake that accelerator issue out of my mind though.
It will be interesting to see where Toyota ends up- they have always had a top reputation for quality, safety and gas mileage. Good analysis of how social media has impacted them in the past year.
ReplyDelete