Marty’s Marketing Minutia

Toyota News Release Shakes Advertising World

Toyota Motor Sales USA's top gaijin, Jim Lentz, revealing the A-BAT concept car.

It seemed innocuous enough, the headline “TMC to Establish Two Marketing Companies” did not seem to portend eminent disaster or predict doom when the release was downloaded and casually reviewed late Wednesday morning. It was simple and straight forward.

The context of the release was: Toyota was changing its marketing organization with two new companies financed with over ¥200 million and staffed with 240+ employees.

But upon more careful reading it might be considered ominous and one thought resonated through the ad world: “OMG they’re going to replace their advertising agencies.”

Almost immediately emails, phone calls – some international, and Skype video links from friends and colleagues crisscrossed each other, all began with similar questions, “Do you know anything about what’s going on with Toyota’s marketing and advertising?” and/or “Have you sources at Toyota or the agency and what did they say?” My answers in order were, “No, yes and nothing.”

Yet, even as I moved to change the responses to “Yes-maybe, yes and lots” news flashes from Advertising Age, Automotive News and several advertising industry web sites, chat rooms and bloggers were arriving on the web in torrents.

Several jumped to the conclusion that Saatchi, Toyota’s major agency and part of the Publicis Groupe (and the agency’s second biggest account with $800 million plus after P&G) was going to lose the business. Ad Age was more circumspect and less concerned quoting Toyota representatives who conceded the news release “Is causing a great deal of confusion.”

So here’s the bottom line based on information I have received from company sources and those very close to the announcement and the following, a translation originally composed in Japanese, of an internal clarification memorandum:

“The main purpose of the two marketing companies is enhancing marketing efforts in Japan; not keeping Toyota’s advertising efforts in-house. Even in line with the purpose, Toyota does not assume cutting the existing business ties with ad agencies.”

“The new domestic marketing company handles activities in Japan and the new marketing assistance and coordination company will provide any marketing assistance for overseas affiliates such as sharing good practices the new marketing company has achieved. This does not mean controlling global marketing activities, but just supporting them.”

Bottom Line?

Advertising agency creatives, media mavens, account types and others in the US can lower the elevated levels of angst, terror and anxiety … for a while at least. The new senior management at TMS, Toyota Motor Sales divisions of Toyota, Lexus and Scion will be issuing new marching orders for all in line with the new corporate charge to create more “passion” in their vehicles.

Add to this the need to return Toyota Motor Corporation to profitability – remember last year it lost money for the first time in its history. And is projecting a loss again for this year as vehicle sales plummet. And that is not acceptable. Stay tuned. There’s more, much more to come.

THE TAO OF CLUNKERS

The East has surpassed the West in replacement vehicles.

Consumers have discovered the realization of the Lao-Tzu state of being: older high MPG clunker vehicles are not worthy. Clunkers inspire with special incentives take a more mystical approach to turning into the natural order of things as a way of achieving personal, social and environmental harmony, simplicity and tranquility.

The West has created strife. A new state of being has eliminated many of the offensive vehicles from the West whose mpg ratings are below the 18 mpg standard. The top ten returned for replacement have been:

The East has surpassed the West in replacement vehicles. Credits of $3,500 or $4,500 to buy new vehicles with higher miles per gallon and lower emissions has brought order and serenity for consumers who have purchased these new vehicles, the majority from the East:

Consumer strife resulted as original funding was exceeded almost immediately, but the governing bodies added $2 billion to continue the expression of satisfaction for many thousands of Tao focused consumers.

West has met East and East has emerged victorious. Or as the master Las-Tzu said, “If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure.

Wanna be an Advertising Mad Man from Mad Men?

Here's my return to the sixties which is surprisingly how I looked then, except there was hair and it wasn't gray.

AMC’s television program Mad Men has captured the attention of millions who otherwise, according to Gallup, do not respect advertising professionals – this group of professionals ranked at the bottom of list, only one ahead of, you guessed it, car salesmen.

As one who worked at and with New York advertising agencies during the sixties, I’ve only watched the program once; it was too close to the real thing. I have some very good memories, but an equal number of the not-so-good.

The hit program however has created a return to the best days of New York in food, fashion, music, theatre, television and some truly great advertising from bright young ad agencies. Many long gone.

AMC just announced a rather cool approach to appeal to fans of the program – which begins the new season Sunday, August 16 – which allows viewers to become an advertising avatar of the sixties ad person in appearance and attire.

Build a face from templates, the design your wardrobe as you slip into a three piece suit with a skinny tie, black scotch grain wing tips, high rise socks with garters (oh, yeah) don the required straw boater in summer or felt fedora in winter at a jaunty angle, then hoist that very, very dry Martini by clicking to AMCTV.com and going to the “Mad Men Yourself” area.

What to do after Cash for Clunkers Expires?

OK, the CARS program has exceeded any expectations, but that’s a Band Aid on the endemic industry sales problem. A new study from Axciom’s Automotive Consumer Dynamics notes there are more than 4 million, yes 4,000,000 U.S. households with vehicles that were/are eligible for the government’s program.

But less than 10%, 250,000 have or are expected to participate in the Cash for Clunkers programs. The key findings of the study are:

• Consumers with the highest index of clunkers prefer minivans and pickups.
• Two consumer groups that have the next highest index score for clunkers show no particular vehicle propensities, leaving a wide-open field for marketing.
• One large group of consumers with potential trade-ins has a strong preference for Korean-made vehicles.
• Thousands of consumers who “come late to the party” can still be good prospects for new car sales after the federal money is depleted.

The following brands have 10 or more vehicles which fill the requirements of CARS, which may not be funded, but will be top of the mind for consumer consideration:

 The study also reported a BIGresearch analysis of automakers location, with some surprising results given the actual sales for the CARS program: 

Suzuki’s Commercial Generated Sales

It worked, as I predicted.

Several weeks ago I complimented, even praised a new Suzuki commercial that compared the SX4 Crossover to a Mini Cooper. It was an aggressive stretch and well done. The question are “did it work?” What were the results in sales and perceptions?

Compete, Inc. and Automotive Intelligence Company just released a study of the Suzuki commercial, which while summarizing the results notes “The ads appear to be generally successful in increasing SX4 Crossover demand, with some caveats.” To read the full results click here.  http://www.competeinc.com/research/newsletters/suzuki-sx4-seeking-maximum-lift-mini-comparison/ it’s the new age of measuring ad effectiveness.

Was I right in my assessment? Yes. The bottom line question is can ad critics and reviewers predict response based on their evaluation of the commercial? The answer to the latter is “Yes and no!

Dream Cruise Outdoor Boards

One of the best projects in recent years has been a bevy of beautiful muscle car posters like these.

They, like the cars are not new, but they are classics of great design and copy. If you know when these were created and by whom, please let me know.