Toyota Unleashing PR Juggernaut

[dsmnick]

I'll probably get some heat from certain members for posting this on a Toyota board, but the man makes some perfectly valid points. Like I've said before as well, how can Toyota claim its image of being a green automaker when it produces just as many large trucks and SUVs alongside models like the Prius and Highlander hybrid? This new San Antonio doesn't exactly solidify that green image as well. If Toyota wouldn't play it up so much about how green they were and how awful GM and Ford were, I wouldn't have any problem with it...but they are so incredibly hypocritical...especially since many of their large SUVs receive worse gas mileage than comparable GM and Ford models.

Well, it was just a matter of time, ladies and gentlemen. According to Mark Rechtin's report this week in Automotive News, Toyota is about to unleash the full force of its marketing might in order to cement its "Mr. Green Jeans" persona into the hearts and minds of the American consumer, beginning next week.

Toyota is said to be spending as much as the proper launch of a new car (perhaps as much as $60 million) to tout its Hybrid Synergy Drive technology. Jim Farley, Toyota's vice president of marketing, told Rechtin that "We want to make Hybrid Synergy Drive the Intel chip of cars. We want it to be a badge of honor." Toyota is clearly out to corner the Green positioning in the U.S. market with this move.

As a result of a masterfully calculated and orchestrated PR/advertising push, Toyota has already successfully convinced the anti-car, anti-Detroit intelligentsia on both coasts that they're the only automobile company in the world capable of building hybrids, even though that's simply untrue. They've even managed to convince New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that we'd all be better off if GM and the rest of Detroit went away in favor of Toyota becoming America's car company. This new campaign is meant to solidify that notion even further, apparently.

Farley said that the campaign would blatantly play on people's emotions, posing such questions as: "What if the air was clean again?" "What if you could breathe clearly forever?" "Wouldn't you like a car that creates 80 percent less smog-forming emissions?" "Mostly we're going to focus on the environment, miles per gallon, social responsibility, and people making a choice," the always-smug Farley continued. But Farley also conveniently glossed over the fact that Toyota is one of the biggest purveyors of SUVs in the North American market right now and that they're getting ready to open a brand-new plant in 2007 just south of San Antonio that will produce the biggest full-size pickup trucks in the company's history. "Consumers are smart," Farley told Rechtin. "They understand Toyota makes a lot of different vehicles. Hybrid Synergy Drive is not a conflict with us building Sequoia or Tundra." Oh really, Jim? Sounds like unmitigated bullshit to us.

Consumers only understand what your carefully crafted promotional campaigns have mislead them to believe, Jim. And that is that Toyota is made up of Shiny Happy People who build totally benign vehicles propelled by hugs and a smile - vehicles with no downside whatsoever, which is flat-out untrue. Toyota's calculated manipulation of the mainstream media yielded breathless early road test results of the Prius that outrageously exaggerated the fuel economy numbers. And even though subsequent road tests from actual real live automotive writers debunked Toyota's mileage claims, the ship had sailed - and Toyota had delivered the "magic bullet." Toyota's greatest single advantage over Detroit right now (although the list is long and growing by the day) is that they have a war chest deep enough to do a launch-level campaign just to talk about hybrid technology and not even give it a second thought.

GM, for instance, can't afford to spend that much to even launch one important vehicle properly, because they're juggling so many models and divisions and have such a cash crunch that they simply can't afford it - let alone devote that much to a technology campaign. There's no question about it, folks, Toyota is going for Detroit's jugular with this move. They are hell-bent on world domination, and if what's left of the Detroit-based auto industry is a casualty along the way - then so be it.

http://www.autoextremist.com/page6.shtml#table

[84Cressida]

Uh Toyota doesnt' produce 2mpg H2s, and Excursions, and they are at least TRYING TO HELP, the environment.

[nyscene911]

Originally Posted by 84Cressida

Uh Toyota doesnt' produce 2mpg H2s, and Excursions, and they are at least TRYING TO HELP, the environment.

No they're not trying to help the environment. Although Toyota may have a beautiful image of being a green company that cares about the earth thats all it is--an image. Its a great marketing ploy, that gets people into the showrooms. Thats the point of this, and the hybrids--To sell themselves as Earth-conscious, and to in the process sell cars.

[Fresco Bob]

I read that by 2008 or around there every toyota is going to have a hybrid option

[HoboJoe]

Well, Toyota actually has these hybrid vehicles unlike GM. Well, technically, GM has a hybrid truck that really doesn't do much better than a normal gas truck. But you could say the same for the Highlander hybrid and RX400h. They don't get much better mpg but the performance is a bit better.
Lastly, this plant is going to be in texas. Of course there most gas guzzling vehicles are going to be produced there.

[Deuce]

dsm, don't underestimate Toyota, let alone the entire Japanese Auto Industry. Because of the fact that every drop of oil in Japan is shipped there, and their levels of air pollution, the real innovations in emissions control and mileage advances are more likely to come from there than Detroit.

Once they take a pretty god piece of the truck market, then you'll start to see innovations making the trucks have better mileage, either through better fuel burning or through hybrid synergy drives, or something else.

While GM/Ford are working on hydrogen fueling, and DCX still has its hydrogen fuel cell project going, I doubt that technology would ever become practical, because of the amount of space needed to cause a hydrogen combustion.

The only flaw with this fuel system change, especially with Hybrids, if hybrids become dominant in the world for fueling, and you need to refill every 500 city miles instead of 300, since everyone would be going less, gas prices will go higher.

Same thing with the other technology. The less frequently you have to fill up on it, the more expensive it'll be to do so.

[Ruffrydasean]

... coincidentally...

Hydro Man saves the day

[Lasse D]

Why should the fact that Toyota does a lot for the environment* hinder them from making large trucks and SUVs that the American people apparently need or want? If Toyota has the money and incestive to make the manufactoring, repairing and even recycling of these monsters cleaner, then why the hell not let them?!

M, for instance, can't afford to spend that much to even launch one important vehicle properly, because they're juggling so many models and divisions and have such a cash crunch that they simply can't afford it - let alone devote that much to a technology campaign.

Please give me his address so I can send him a napkin.


*by giving people a choice to get an environmentally friendly car, forcing both dealerships, garages and factories into polluting less and making cars almost completely recyclable. They even give you a bounty for handing in the used hybrid battery! (Read my post in the "what do you think about GM and Ford"-thread to see some surveys about which cars are cleanest)

[KoboChan]

Originally Posted by dsmnick

I'll probably get some heat from certain members for posting this on a Toyota board, but the man makes some perfectly valid points. Like I've said before as well, how can Toyota claim its image of being a green automaker when it produces just as many large trucks and SUVs alongside models like the Prius and Highlander hybrid? This new San Antonio doesn't exactly solidify that green image as well. If Toyota wouldn't play it up so much about how green they were and how awful GM and Ford were, I wouldn't have any problem with it...but they are so incredibly hypocritical...especially since many of their large SUVs receive worse gas mileage than comparable GM and Ford models.

http://www.autoextremist.com/page6.shtml#table

"green" corresponds to low emmissions, not low fuel consumption and they are two different things..

[05XRS]

Originally Posted by nyscene911

No they're not trying to help the environment. Although Toyota may have a beautiful image of being a green company that cares about the earth thats all it is--an image. Its a great marketing ploy, that gets people into the showrooms. Thats the point of this, and the hybrids--To sell themselves as Earth-conscious, and to in the process sell cars.

Toyota produces large trucks and SUV's because AMERICANS ARE STILL HUNGRY FOR THEM!
I would suggest that offering a half-dozen hybrid alternatives and having sold a few hundred thousand prius' makes them a helluva lot greener and more 'on the ball' than their domestic competitors for right now. I can also tell you that they operate their manufacturing facilities about as environmentally friendly as possible and they don't use that fact to sell cars.

[CACressida]

Toyota is "GREEN" They produce vehicles that have the best low emissions engines. And now you know why Toyota has uncompetive hp. So it doesn't lose its Ultra Low Emission Crown. Sure the Hemi has 345+hp, but does it burn cleaner? Heck no.

[Lord_Anarchy]

Toyota is satan.. I knew it.. Ah well, it'll happen.

[Ratko]

Toyota is the world's largest hybrid car manufacturer. My question is, why WOULDN'T Toyota want to use that fact to their advantage in advertising campaigns?

[echo_hrs]

Why is it that this columnist condemns Toyota for "misleading marketing" of the Hybrid Synergy Drive and poo-poos Toyota for taking an approach in its marketing that it makes "vehicles with no downside whatsoever, which is flat-out untrue"

Since when has any automaker launched a marketing campaign that tells consumers about the "downside" of owning their vehicles?

If this is this coiumnist's beef then he should also condem the "Hemi" marketing of Chrysler, since every commercial they make touts this engine, and then justifies the wasteful consumption of fuel with "cylinder deactivation technology"

And condemn the GM commercials that claim "more horsepower than every import in their class" without telling us that their cars get substantially less fuel economy...

Cheers

[nyscene911]

Originally Posted by echo_hrs

Why is it that this columnist condemns Toyota for "misleading marketing" of the Hybrid Synergy Drive and poo-poos Toyota for taking an approach in its marketing that it makes "vehicles with no downside whatsoever, which is flat-out untrue"

Since when has any automaker launched a marketing campaign that tells consumers about the "downside" of owning their vehicles?

If this is this coiumnist's beef then he should also condem the "Hemi" marketing of Chrysler, since every commercial they make touts this engine, and then justifies the wasteful consumption of fuel with "cylinder deactivation technology"

And condemn the GM commercials that claim "more horsepower than every import in their class" without telling us that their cars get substantially less fuel economy...

Cheers

I haven't seen that last commercial as of yet.
But I am sick of the Hemi commercials. I actually saw a guy with a liscense plate frame on a PT Cruiser that said "yeah, its got a hemi." I almost cried.