Toyota sponsored The Weather Channel’s free iPad app for the device’s rollout. Within the first five days of the launch, the free app - there is a paid as well - was the third most popular, according to Broadcasting Cable. That is good news for the Weather Channel, certainly, but also for Toyota, which has been trying to reach consumers online through various ad and marketing initiatives ever since the controversy over the still-mysterious acceleration in some models reached a crisis point earlier this year.
Digging for Acceptance
The centerpiece of this strategy - which complements a range of other initiatives including an aggressive pushback against acceleration claims - was an interview by Toyota Motor Sales USA president Jim Lentz for its Digg Dialogg interview series in February.
Toyota was already an advertiser on the site but it knew it needed to get out ahead of the growing chorus of bad news, Adweek reports. The Feb. 8 live-stream interview with Lentz was more popular than any of the Dialogg interviews to date - reaching more than 1 million views in the first five days alone, Adweek said.
Toyota's strategy was a multi-pronged one, with a large ad buy around the interview and a Digg microsite aggregating the Toyota stories in one place. "The recall situation we faced in this new landscape was one brands had not really seen before. We were in unchartered territory," Doug Frisbie, national social media and at Toyota Motor Sales, told Adweek. "This allowed us to take a much more conversational approach, which for a big brand is difficult to do."
Frisbie pointed to the company’s surprisingly high March sales - 41% higher than the same month in 2009 - as proof that its strategy worked.
Tone Deaf
Up until that point, though, Toyota's social media strategy reflected the company's larger, flat-footed response to the recall and Congressional hearings. Even in February, the height of the recall, its website was still talking about what a great brand it was - with little space devoted to the recall.
Toyota also failed to build up an online fan base before this crisis struck, which is inexplicable given the long-developing nature of the problem. A Facebook fan club or active Twitter presence would have been smart bases to be developing, JaffeJuice wrote at the time. "When times are tough, the first place and the first people to turn to are customers, loyalists, enthusiasts, fans, friends, followers, advocates, evangelists…hell, even critics. These groups of people don't magically materialize overnight. They are built, earned and nurtured over time."
