What Toyota can Learn from BP

There are two things which remain true for almost any business at any time: follow-up is important, and assumptions are often wrong. It’s time to follow up on the Toyota recall incident, and to see what has actually happened to the Toyota brand over the past year, examining some of the assumptions that people made about the recall disaster’s effect. There’s also a rule of PR that fits the Toyota story nicely now: when things start to get really bad, throw a party.

As the one-year anniversary of the 29 August crash of a Lexus the claimed the life of an off-duty U.S. police officer and his family approaches rapidly, Toyota finds itself in a position which is even worse than could have been imagined one year ago. While the BP oil spill crisis has taken the spotlight from Toyota’s recalls, newspapers around the world are regularly flooded with articles detailing continued recalls of Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

Now it’s a steering system defect, in 373,000 Avalon models. There’s also another steering defect in 39,000 Lexus LX470 SUVs. With a new recall appearing in newspapers every week, it’s fair for consumers to question whether all Toyota and Lexus vehicles have inherent safety flaws.

There are also the internal documents, hot off the press, that Toyota was able to demonstrate sudden acceleration in its vehicles as much as seven years ago, without making sufficient repairs in its models. The titles of such articles usually are something like “Runaway Toyotas”. The bottom line is, they are in the middle of one of the worst public relations disasters in history. It is a nightmare that is not ending.

Toyota has maintained a hard defensive line, claiming that while there were certainly safety defects with some vehicles, that Toyotas were still safe. Steve St. Angelo, Toyota’s Chief Quality Officer (a difficult position to be in now), claimed that “Toyota owners can be confident in the safety of their vehicles.”

However, it’s hard to believe that anymore, when the numbers of recalls and the horrific nature of the crashes contradict that directly. There is only so much that a company can say to drown out criticism. At this point, consumers want action or concrete evidence that Toyota is working to solve these problems, and the company is failing drastically at providing that.

Their advertisements are centered on platitudes, rather than on specific facts or examples of how they have made the process right.

The impact on sales has been dramatic. Sales slid 3.2 per cent over the past year – while it may seem like a small number, it’s remarkable in a time when almost all other car companies have experienced growth – including Ford and GM, who have been able to reap the benefits of the public growing uncertainty about Toyota’s quality.

The deeper problem for Toyota, here, is one of brand identity. Toyota does not offer luxury, classiness, or tangible innovation. Rather, their reputation was built upon offering cars that will get consumers from Point A to Point B in a safe, efficient, and cost-effective manner. Consumers no longer believe that Toyota offers this, and this puts the future of their brand in extreme danger.

So what can they do? For starters, they can take a lesson from BP. It goes without saying that BP did not do everything perfectly. Far from it – their handling of the oil spill crisis was so problematic that their CEO, Tony Hayward, was forced out of the company as a result.

However, when it came to addressing the problems and concerns of the general public, BP was relentless in flooding the airwaves and internet with evidence of what their company was trying to do to fix the problem, and how hard they were trying to directly address the public concerns.

BP admitted that they made a grave mistake, and that they are trying to fix it. This gave the public the impression that BP was actively attempting to fix the disaster, and BP used all the mediums at their disposal – Twitter, YouTube, and PR – to get their message across. As a result, once the crisis subsides, BP’s aggressive response should help making rebuilding their brand an easier process.

Toyota needs to follow a similar pattern. They can no longer pretend the problem does not exist. Toyota must now admit to the public that they did indeed make a mistake in their production – which everyone knows anyone – and outline the reasons that these disaster will never happen again. Until then, Toyota faces limited potential for recovery.

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