When I first caught the news of Toyota launching a new site called "Ideas for Good", I thought it was your typical request for consumer ideas much like My Starbucks Idea or Ford's Your Ideas. However, Toyota is taking an unusual, though complicated, twist on the concept.
Toyota wants people to generate ideas from a handful of their technologies. If you are not familiar with Toyota's technologies that's okay as they provide links to details. For example get to know more about T.H.U.M.S.:
T.H.U.M.S. (Total HUman Model for Safety) is an advanced injury-simulation software that measures more than the conventional crash test dummy can.
It's an interesting approach. Here is a technology developed by Toyota now tell us what we should do with it beyond its original automotive application. So far there were no ideas posted on the site, but that probably has more to do with today being the first day of promoting the site.
Toyota is promoting the ideas site using television ads which is also a different route than Ford, Starbucks and BestBuy who kept their idea sites to digital promotional channels, not TV.
BMW and Audi are definitely proving all it takes to drive significant Fans on Facebook is a healthy marketing budget. Both brands had over 40% gains in July and both crossed the laudable 1 Million-Fan mark. Considering it took BMW years to cross the half-a-million-fan mark back in February 2010, where they celebrated the milestone by launching a YouTube video, it is interesting to see how ad impressions on the social media site can drive significant gains for aspirational, luxury car brands. (Note: the BMW Facebook Fan page was assumed by the brand in November 2009 where it had been managed and originally created by a BMW dealer in Spain. So, the first 1/2 million fans was dominantly, if not entirely, gained organically.)
Some of the smaller volume brands like Mitsubishi, Smart and Scion also experienced over 40% growth leading me to believe both also ran Facebook advertising this past month.
Toyota gained an impressive 38% fans in July. They were actively promoting their latest social media user generated content idea called “Auto-Biography” where the social media team selected a few stories to be “animated with the help of [their] artistic friends”… i.e. ad agency. This is interesting, as Toyota has been running several safety videos in response to their much publicized recalls.
Here we finally see Toyota recovering from the bad public relations and turning to the voice of the customer, which I think is a good move based on where the brand is today. Let the consumer voice showcase their passion for the products. It was a risky bet, except that Toyota approves every story before it is posted on the Facebook tab.
The only odd thing in July was a negative fan dip for the Infiniti brand. It would be interesting to see why this is happening. My guess is that some Infiniti fans are a bit turned off by the social media team’s wall posts promoting the Cirque du Soleil promotion; though, this guess is just that a guess. Looking at the fan page comments on the Cirque posts, several fans do enjoy the association. It still could be due to an increased frequency of the team pushing every marketing promotion on the page's wall. Without knowing the Facebook analytics and insight data, it is difficult for me to assess what is going on, perhaps their Facebook team should look at frequency of posts and also when the fan drop may have occurred since it is pretty rare to see a brand page lose fans in a month.
Mini wrapped up a contest early last February where owners of the second generation Mini Cooper convertible shared their recorded top-down driving miles through a web site called TheOpenOne.com. The winner ended up logging 555.5 miles. David Loveall’s Mini is his first car and will doing his traveling sales job he was able to win a trip for two to Oxford, England at the Mini factory.
I originally caught this story in the latest issue of Roundel magazine. For those who don’t know, Roundel is the monthly magazine for the BMW Car Club of America (@BMWCCA on Twitter) that’s for BMW and Mini owners. They had a small blurb about the winner of the challenge that has gone on since July 28, 2009 and ended December 31, 2009.
I’m not sure how this contest was promoted or who it was supposed to reach. There was an event logged by the Mini USA Facebook administrator but it only registered a few participants. The Mini USA website still has an active link to the Open One Challenge under the top navigation Play menu item (see image at left.)
Since this was a contest only owners could participate in, I would guess enrollment was mainly done via email or owner website outreach to get people interested in the prizing.
Mini’s press release stated, “MINI customers who entered the contest were asked to personalize a profile page with photos of their Open Motoring experience. Photos of all the participants’ journeys.”
There was a minor appeal to get non-owners involved where people could create their own photo gallery to post their own “Open Road adventures with a camera.” The Mini press release says their were some 400 participants but from what I can tell only 115 actually logged hours against their top-down driving.
The site is still up even after awarding the prize February 4, 2010; even the link is still live from the Mini USA website navigation. Content hasn’t been reworked to appeal to those who didn’t participate in the contest. Perhaps it will remain live as a site for a while. One wonders though what appeal the site has now that the contest is done? Unfortunately, the content isn’t very interesting to anyone except for those who played the game.
If you want to see several screenshots from TheOpenOne.com site please check out the Behance Network’s site.
It’s no secret that Toyota is dealing with a major company issue as they respond to unprecedented criticism for their accelerator pedal, hybrid braking and floor mat recalls. One unexpected fallout from the recalls is the end or momentary suspension of Toyota’s brand campaign “Beyond Cars.”
The Beyond Cars website was taken down last week as the company responds to all things recall. When asked why the Beyond Cars was no longer available, I was told it was done “in an effort to make sure the recall info is present, we are currently driving all traffic to the recall site,” according to a representative from the @Toyota Twitter account.
According to Toyota’s press release, the Beyond Cars website invited “visitors to share their ideas for working together to create a better tomorrow.” Visitors could freely input their own ideas, but all entries were moderated and approved before posting.
One wonders if the concept lost internal support with the recall fiasco causing so much negative press for the company. With site moderation Toyota was able to control what would be published to the site, but would site coverage by blogs and other social media conversation mock the concept of talking about a better tomorrow, one that might include Toyotas that were not accelerating beyond the driver’s control?
With any user-generated site, the big question for clients is how thick is your skin when it comes to hearing what your customers, advocates or anyone stopping by has to say. Apparently for Toyota their skin is thin, very, very thin. With site moderation, they controlled what was posted. Even so, once the recall came the brand decided to take down the site entirely probably to avoid any possible negative connotation with the idea of a better tomorrow or negative reaction to Toyota moderating comments.
As an outsider, this shows there really isn’t much of an appetite for user-generated commentary at Toyota. Recalls are definitely a difficult time for any company. Would it be any different with other automotive companies going through this kind of public scrutiny? I’m not so sure it would be any different.
Beyond Cars may return after the recall dust has settled. When asked if it would return the Toyota representative told me “we're going to re-evaluate our plans for the site at a later date.” In the meantime, Toyota is working on its own “better tomorrow.” The world will have to wait.
“In September of 2008 we carved grooves into a quarter mile stretch of asphalt on the outskirts of Lancaster, CA. The goal was to create an experience that embodied the connection Civic drivers feel with the road.”
Honda’s creative musical road idea was an interesting, fun way to express the connection a car has with its road and what its drivers experience as road, car and driver connect in one simultaneous beautiful experience. To bring that experience to life, Honda cut grooves into a road in southern California and create a YouTube channel featuring the original TV commercial and several documentary short films explaining how it was done.
A new online experience on Honda’s Civic shopping website extends the idea in a new way. Website users can now create their own virtual musical road where they can plot different notes on a road and playback the version they made on the “Grooves Game” website.
The experience is an interesting way to bring new life to the original idea and bring an user generated, interactive experience to make the idea more personal. Of course, to make your own song, that’s worth listening to, it helps to have some musical experience. My ability to create a musical road sounded as muddled as the thuds I hear on my daily “musical” expression on the pothole-ridden roads of Michigan each morning.
Supposing you can actually create a new tune that’s worth listening to it is a shame the Honda Grooves Game doesn’t let one share their creation. The only share that can be done is an email sharing form that sends the website link for friends to create their own song.
In an age where most sites share through social media properties, it seems odd that Honda didn’t allow for an easy way to make that happen or a simple way to share a person’s own musical road. This would have made the experience more interesting. Perhaps budget or timing prevented such expression.
Overall, the idea is great way to extend a real-world idea to a digital idea. Unfortunately, without some stronger social sharing or allowing people to express their own musical roads, the site loses its power to be more compelling.
Toyota wants people to generate ideas from a handful of their technologies. If you are not familiar with Toyota's technologies that's okay as they provide links to details. For example get to know more about T.H.U.M.S.:
