Driving Toyota’s Reputation into the Wall

Screen shot from Toyota "commitment" TV commercial

All of the problems, the issues, the crisis, the severe damage to brand reputation currently facing Toyota are self-inflicted by the company. And, there are revelations each day that Toyota has been aware of safety issues for not days or months but rather years … and did little or nothing about it.

Today, nearly every model of vehicle made by Toyota worldwide is impacted by safety problems, including brakes and accelerators.

Judy Woodruff reported on PBS NewsHour last evening:

State Farm Insurance said today it reported concerns about acceleration problems in Toyotas in 2007 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA.

But a Democratic congressional staff memo said neither Toyota nor federal regulators have identified all of the causes of the uncontrolled accelerations.

One wonders whether Toyota simply turned to its Washington lobbyist to sweep the issue under the carpet, as is often the custom in this city. I don’t know but I suspect so.

It was announced in PR Newser just today that Toyota is adding more lobbying firms to its Washington roster, not necessarily an assuring signal from a company that it is actively making cars safer for drivers. Rather, it suggests a company seeking to buy even more influence in the nation’s capital, a city where influence is bought and sold. Washington lobbying firms lack the skills, competence and credentials to manage any crisis of this scale (or any crisis, for that matter, because it’s not what they do.)

In the critical area of brand crisis management, Toyota is fumbling badly. Toyota’s PR in the U.S. is reportedly being handled by Robinson Lerer Montgomery, a rather old-school PR agency that’s not known for being too digitally savvy.

Toyota today faces a crippling crisis of brand trust and reputation over whether its vehicles are safe. A company that built its brand on safety (as did Volvo) is now perceived by many consumers as not a safe brand.

Toyota’s so-called “commitment” television commercial (below) that debuted this week not only seems like disingenuous vanilla coating but is simply not fully truthful. The commercial begins with a grammatical error in the first line – “For over 50 years …” It should have been, “For more than 50 years …” to be grammatically correct. But the commercial states that Toyota has stopped all production to address safety issues for customers, which we find is not the case. The car company reportedly is in chaos over how to address its multiple safety related problems.

Toyota’s “commitment” TV commercial, created in what I’d call a Hallmark Card-style (with apologies to Hallmark), features an overly sentimental-sounding announcer with gentle New Age tinkling piano background, which reminds those in Washington of similar radio spots by Lockheed Martin to lobby for military arms and fighter jets. It’s an old-fashioned style that misses the mark to work for Toyota in order to rebuild trust. The TV commercial is another self-inflicted wound to its brand.

The face and voice of Toyota must stop hiding behind TV commercials and prepared statements. It must authentically and credibly get before the people of America through mainstream media and online.

As Judy Woodruff noted during the NewsHour segment on Toyota’s perils, “Toyota declined our request for an interview.” (The car company is a NewsHour underwriter.)