Toyota Goes Digital to Market Safety Perception Gap

Toyota is in a real tailspin lately after countless recalls and the latest JD Power Quality Rating that gave the automaker a terrifying drop from 6th to 21st place out of 33 brands. Some industry pundits feel Toyota has enjoyed a leisurely advantage from their customers’ perception of strong quality over the years while in reality it has been deteriorating. A recent episode of Autoline After Hours had host John McElroy commenting on how all of the news is finally showing some of the chinks in Toyota’s quality armor that many consumers have known this for years. (As a side note: If you like this blog, you'll love Autoline After Hours it is by far the best Auto Industry podcast. I highly recommend it for weekly viewing.)

Whatever the case with Toyota’s real or perceived quality and safety issues are they have launched a major digital media campaign to respond to the safety issue.

The initial response was Toyota’s Recall landing page, but now they are moving to a strategic response around “Toyota Safety”. The online ads are directing people to the new safety site that communicates some of Toyota’s efforts around building safe cars. They feature their IIHS Top Safety Pick ratings, their SMART Teams who conduct rapid on-site analysis of issues, and their TV spots (online video) feature safety engineers and families that trust the brand. “At Toyota, we’re currently investing one million dollars an hour to enhance the safety and technology of our vehicles.”

Toyota has even branded their five safety features under the “Star Safety System” which is now standard on all their vehicles. What is the system? It’s traction control, stability control, anti-lock brakes, electronic brake distribution, and brake assist.

The latest ad buy was one recently used by Chevrolet on Yahoo! Mail that uses a background look to the mail login page (see image at left.) They are also buying several key placements on Facebook to get the message out.

I really like Toyota’s Safety landing page. It provides four clear messages with some well-executed online video explaining the company’s commitment and seriousness about responding to their safety perception issue. After months of news stories reporting unattended accelerating vehicles --some true and some alleged hoaxes -- the company needs to show they make safe vehicles.

The question now is will we see a Toyota Quality landing page after their plunging JD Power Quality rating? If one types in http://www.toyota.com/quality the page is redirected to http://www.toyota.com/productleadership/#/Precision. This page does not look like it is ready for prime time as a destination for online media, but that could easily change if Toyota uses the same formula they have for the Safety and Recall landing pages.

The Beauty of Advertising Emotional Benefit

I found this ad from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership on AdGabber under Steve Hall's headline "This is The Most Beautiful Commercial I Have Ever Seen." It dramatically demonstrates the need for safety belts in a car crash in an emotional, relevant way. At a time when most product demonstrations show electronic diagrams of what a car does in an accident, this public service ad shows the consumer why an automotive feature is necessary.

It is a beautiful message because it shows consumer need in an emotional way. We all clearly understand why it is an important part of the car. Automotive advertisers can learn a lot from this ad. Mostly that it's not about the technology and gadgets; it's the why technology and gadgets provide us with a better and safer life that extends beyond just driving experience.

Tiny Products Warding Off Big PR Problems

After $4 became a reality in the summer of 2008, there has been a progressive push to build smaller, fuel-efficient cars for the U.S. market. Advocates, like author Thomas Friedman, have dedicated significant pages to greening the US car industry by raising CAFE standards and promoting more Euro-like auto choices instead of behemoth SUVs.

So it was a bit disheartening yesterday to read about some rather poor crash tests performed by theInsurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). They reported that three popular small cars - SmartForTwo, Honda Fit, and Toyota Yaris - all received a Poor rating when in a front, off-set crash with a midsized sedan.

From Kicking Tires: "What these fresh results from IIHS spell out is that in a frontal collision, physics dictate that the larger vehicle in the test will fare better than the smaller one. Force is distributed unevenly, making the small car lose out in any matchup versus a larger car.

Crash statistics prove this to some degree. In 2007, small-car crashes resulted in a 17% higher fatality rate than midsize-car crashes."

One company was especially irate about the test they criticized saying, "IIHS devised a test that no automaker has designed to and that they claim only represents about one percent of real world accidents."

Safe and Smart is a site Smart car is using to generate user content about their owners real-world experience with the car's safety capabilities. The site is very interesting, for many reasons. First it features real crash photos and stories from owners detailing what happened to them and how they walked away. You can also "Share Your Story". (Yes, I was tempted to write a story of how I was involved in an offset front crash with a Mercedes C class and upload the picture from IIHS.)

The site also provides product details about the safety measure Smart has taken with the car's technology and design. I also found in Smart's press release to the IIHS study that the promoted this site as a more informed response to IIHS's approach.

Toyota ignored the report, from what I can tell; however, their online Toyota Community did not. Someone started a threaded discussion entitled, "What is 'wrong' with these new subcompacts?" where several people shared their thoughts on the topic.

Alicia_at_Honda on Twitter did not comment on the story nor did Honda release any statements on the Honda USA website.

The good news for Toyota and Honda (and Smart too) is that other outlets are responding to the study with contempt. Some reader comments on blogs found it interesting that no American car company cars were featured, like the Chevy Aveo. This lead to comments like this on Edmunds, "I wonder if this is an attempt either by the media or domestic manufacturers to smear foreign automotive manufacturers."

Motor Trend had another theory: "Yes, our highways would be safer if we removed anything smaller than a midsize car, and larger than a half-ton pickup, too. Buses and semis included. Of course, IIHS doesn't expect that to happen -- it doesn't want that to happen. It simply wants to make sure that the money you save by buying a small, fuel-efficient car goes into the pockets of your auto insurance company."