“Oh what a feeling!” — Toyota’s old corporate advertising theme —
must be taking on a far different meaning these days at company
headquarters. From some data we’ve seen, it appears Toyota could face
problems regaining the trust of female consumers as it rebuilds its
image in the U.S.
The story just keeps getting worse and
worse for Toyota in terms of announcements, Congressional hearings and
a litany of bad press. On the marketing side, many of us, including
yours truly, have offered thoughts and ideas on how to learn from
Toyota’s mistakes should your company find itself in similar
problematic circumstances. We have also opined on what Toyota should do
next and of course listened to Toyota talk about how their loyalty has
actually INCREASED (Ad Age “The Cult of Toyota”, March 1, 2010) since
the recall announcement, at least as measured by their customers
comments and additions on Facebook and followers on Twitter.
I could go into great detail about how this use of their social
strategy is a day late and a dollar short. But, hey, they get props for
at least going there eventually (Honda, by way of comparison, has over
4 times as many followers as measured in a similar way). And truth be
told, it is in what the customers are saying, not any of us, that
matter at the end of the day. The first indicator of pain or progress
was last week’s announcements of the February auto sales performance.
Toyota lost only 8 points of share, year over year, but last years
levels were the worst in its recent history. Still, it’s not bad
considering the mayhem. This would not look so bad if it weren’t for
the fact that Ford gained a whopping 43% year over year (yes, over a
low base too, but still!).
Why is that? Dan Neely, my friend and founder of Networked Insights,
a social listening company that tracks over 17 million blogs, social
platforms and websites for a total sample size of 300 million people
globally (of which 180 million are US-based), performed a little social
listening analysis to see if we could make sense of it.
Take a look at this: The words size and boldness reflect the frequency and strength of usage amongst the over 17 million sites.
So, as usual, we Americans are far more likely to have polarizing
viewpoints with the common usage of both “love” and “sucks”. We can see
from the above that with regard to Toyota, people in the US tend to be
focused on issues of reliability and quality, same as our global
brethren. We also seem to breathe Honda in the same breath likely
because there are similarities to be drawn with the Japanese OEM’s but
also because it seems that Honda was the last standing automotive brand
who’s virtues are also firmly and almost solely based on the idea of
quality and reliability…at least before the Honda recall that was
announced last week. (Note that these slides are reflective of
listening trends from the week after the Toyota recall).
Does age matter? Yes. We know that Toyota serves all ages and the Scion
brand and Prius have actually pushed Toyota’s average buyer age lower.
Taking a look again at the Toyota data here, it seems as if the
similarities lie in the use of “quality” and “reliability” again. But
the more mature Americans are far more critical with the frequent
occurrence of the use of words like “junk”, “failed”, and “judged”. It
seems the younger audience is more likely to forgive and move on than
the more mature of us.
But the most important slide in my estimation is this one. Gender.
And no, it is not because I am a woman, but it is because of my years
in the automotive sector at both Ford and DaimlerChrysler which taught
me that while men make up just over half of all auto purchases, women
INFLUENCE over 80% of them. So, let’s pay attention here. Both genders
speak of “quality” and “issues” but the men are speaking more
frequently of “Honda”, “fix”, and “love” while the women talk of “Ford”
most often and critical conversations include words like “report”,
“failure” and “damage”.
Call it a coincidence, but I think that this data was an early
indicator of the February sales trends. Ford was the clear winner
because it has great products, has not taken TARP funds and is not
managed by our government. They also benefit from the fact that more
WOMEN have decided that they are the brand to consider, even over Honda.
So, maybe the best piece of advice for Toyota left unsaid so far:
pay attention to the women and use your marketing forces to regain
their trust. Understand that women are not one size fits all. They are
daughters, grandmothers, mothers, single women, married women, divorced
women, blue-collar women, white-collar women, rich, poor and everything
in between. Emotion, trust, facts, assurance and authenticity matter a
lot to them. Find out where they are having these conversations that
have been captured in these slides and work to turn it around. Because
if you don’t, Ford will. Oh, what a feeling.