Southeast Toyota Pulls Ads From ABC Due to "Excessive Coverage"

[The Electric Me]

I just don't know if it's a wise or affective move by Southeast Toyota. I can certainly understand the frustration probably felt with what has been a very caustic handling of Toyota's woes from the media, including ABC.

But what does it really accomplish? If I'm GM or Honda, Volkswagen...any competitor, I buy the time Toyota has abandoned.

In the meantime, to most people outside of Prius Chat or strongly aligned with Toyota what does it appear to be? I think it could be perceived as defensive or sour grapes. "You haven't been reporting the way we think you should be reporting, so....". I don't know if it really puts Toyota in a good light. Most people understand the media can get out of control BUT they also usually will back the freedom of the media. This kind of smacks of, "You haven't been playing nice with us, so we're taking our ball and not playing with you"..and I don't know how that plays with the public.

I can really understand Southeast Toyota's frustration and the feeling of why should we give advertising dollars to a network that has been attacking us? but when it comes to media and news coverage I think it's one of the rare times where you have to ignore it, and feed the hand that bites you.

What did the Godfather say? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer? Toyota can't afford to make any enemies right now. They've got to keep everyone close.

[DeadPhish]

Originally Posted by jburns

I understand where you are trying to come from but this is the weakest possible defense. Trying to excuse poor behavior by finding someone who was even worse is one of the last resorts of a scoundrel and never works. All it does is to get you included in any top 10 worst lists.

Also these numbers
1132 complaints in 900,000 vehicles
132 complaints in 103,000 vehicles

are not in Toyota's favor as much as they seem at first. The Cobalt has been out for 5 years. All the Toyota complaints are in the past few months. The difference in complaint rate is only about 10% with over four years to go.

You misread the post. It was in answer to the poster who stated this....

GM has not systematically tried to hide a major safety defect,

GM certainly definitely has systematically tried to hide a major safety defect. For 5 yrs and over 1100 complaints it has done exactly that. The point of the post was that one should not be throwing stones while living in a glass house paid for by the US taxpayer.

[DeadPhish]

Originally Posted by The Electric Me

I just don't know if it's a wise or affective move by Southeast Toyota. I can certainly understand the frustration probably felt with what has been a very caustic handling of Toyota's woes from the media, including ABC.

But what does it really accomplish? If I'm GM or Honda, Volkswagen...any competitor, I buy the time Toyota has abandoned.

That doesn't follow. Presumably GM, Ford, and the others already do advertise on ABC in these markets. It's not like there's a shortage of advertising space. In today's market the media companies are dying from starvation.

By doing this SET ( not Toyota Motor Sales ), a group of small local businesses, is hastening the death through starvation of these other small local businesses affiliated with ABC. It drives a wedge into their relationships. That is unless the affiliates get ABC to cave, then it's all is hugs and kisses again. SET money will flow back to the local affiliates.

In the meantime, to most people outside of Prius Chat or strongly aligned with Toyota what does it appear to be? I think it could be perceived as defensive or sour grapes. "You haven't been reporting the way we think you should be reporting, so....". I don't know if it really puts Toyota in a good light. Most people understand the media can get out of control BUT they also usually will back the freedom of the media. This kind of smacks of, "You haven't been playing nice with us, so we're taking our ball and not playing with you"..and I don't know how that plays with the public.

I can really understand Southeast Toyota's frustration and the feeling of why should we give advertising dollars to a network that has been attacking us? but when it comes to media and news coverage I think it's one of the rare times where you have to ignore it, and feed the hand that bites you.

What did the Godfather say? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer? Toyota can't afford to make any enemies right now. They've got to keep everyone close.

JM&A is a very very smart marketing company. This is the best part of big business, the dirty, scraping, scratching, biting in the trenches that the public rarely sees. It's just business.

If you want to keep paying the company that's throwing rocks and breaking your windows every day well then in your utopia you can continue on doing that. In the world of business however throwing rocks at someone's windows ends up in a fist fight.

Imagine your neighbor's 15 y.o. and his friends decide that you're a wimp and you deserve to have your windows broken every night. Are you going to go out every morning hug him and his buddies, fix your windows and wait for them to break them again the next night? Hug him the next morning fix the windows again and wait again that night for them to break them all again?

If so then stay out of business. You'll get glass in your feet every night.

[malorn]

This stategy works fine if this is a page 7 story, but this is one of the largest stories in the world right now. In this case an advertising boycott will just make the television stations angry.

[alam99]

Speaking generally, I feel these are the possible factors which exacerbated the issue:

1) There is disagreement between drivers about whether the Prius had a braking issue. This discussion / argument made it a re-occuring topic.
2) Toyota remained silent or non-commited in their responses to brake concerns, which further drove the discussions of point #1.
3) Toyota's had a huge number of recalls recently. People are looking closely at them to see if there's anything else amiss.
4) Yes, maybe as largest foreign car maker in the U.S., they became a target.

I don't think the Prius is being recalled simply as a PR stunt to appease the U.S. newspapers, drivers, or government agencies. Else, why would the Japanese government also be looking closely at Toyota?

Taking away their advertising dollars seems like a strong arm tactic. I would rather Toyota sent executives and engineers to do interviews on ABC news and answer questions, or have news specials where they invite the press into their factories to demonstrate the safety precautions Toyota takes. If they have nothing to bury and hide, transparency would be a great way to convince the doubting public of Toyota quality. They would gain a lot of good PR for doing "the right thing", even if it meant owning up to a mistake or two.

[malorn]

Originally Posted by alam99

Speaking generally, I feel these are the possible factors which exacerbated the issue:

1) There is disagreement between drivers about whether the Prius had a braking issue. This discussion / argument made it a re-occuring topic.
2) Toyota remained silent or non-commited in their responses to brake concerns, which further drove the discussions of point #1.
3) Toyota's had a huge number of recalls recently. People are looking closely at them to see if there's anything else amiss.
4) Yes, maybe as largest foreign car maker in the U.S., they became a target.

I don't think the Prius is being recalled simply as a PR stunt to appease the U.S. newspapers, drivers, or government agencies. Else, why would the Japanese government also be looking closely at Toyota?

Taking away their advertising dollars seems like a strong arm tactic. I would rather Toyota sent executives and engineers to do interviews on ABC news and answer questions, or have news specials where they invite the press into their factories to demonstrate the safety precautions Toyota takes. If they have nothing to bury and hide, transparency would be a great way to convince the doubting public of Toyota quality. They would gain a lot of good PR for doing "the right thing", even if it meant owning up to a mistake or two.

These Toyota dealers pulling advertising on ABC is now being picked up by other news orgs(USA Today, Fox news, NYT, etc) this is not good for Toyota.

[malorn]

It has begun....

The Southeastern Toyota Bullies: Should You Buy a Car From These People? - Bob Franken - Franken Sense - True/Slant

[The Electric Me]

Originally Posted by DeadPhish

That doesn't follow. Presumably GM, Ford, and the others already do advertise on ABC in these markets. It's not like there's a shortage of advertising space. In today's market the media companies are dying from starvation.

By doing this SET ( not Toyota Motor Sales ), a group of small local businesses, is hastening the death through starvation of these other small local businesses affiliated with ABC. It drives a wedge into their relationships. That is unless the affiliates get ABC to cave, then it's all is hugs and kisses again. SET money will flow back to the local affiliates.



JM&A is a very very smart marketing company. This is the best part of big business, the dirty, scraping, scratching, biting in the trenches that the public rarely sees. It's just business.

If you want to keep paying the company that's throwing rocks and breaking your windows every day well then in your utopia you can continue on doing that. In the world of business however throwing rocks at someone's windows ends up in a fist fight.

Imagine your neighbor's 15 y.o. and his friends decide that you're a wimp and you deserve to have your windows broken every night. Are you going to go out every morning hug him and his buddies, fix your windows and wait for them to break them again the next night? Hug him the next morning fix the windows again and wait again that night for them to break them all again?

If so then stay out of business. You'll get glass in your feet every night.

Well we can have battling imagery. You can suggest that giving advertising dollars to ABC affiliates would be like hugging someone that is breaking your windows every night, and I can suggest that pulling your advertising from ABC appears to be liking taking your ball and going home because you don't like the way you are being treated.

What it boils down to is how the general public is going to perceive this move. Generally speaking people don't like the idea of trying to manipulate the media (even if the media is being unfair)...and that is how this is going to be percieved.

To me bottom line is what good does it do? I think it makes SET look bad. Whether it is or not, it appears to be a childish reaction.

I still think this situation is a RARE situation where you are best served by feeding the hand that bites you. Getting headlines with this reaction is creating even more turmoil and more "negative" headlines with the word Toyota in them.

I'll say it again, but Toyota needs to keep their friends close and their enemies closer...and they need to stay in the game. Boycotting affiliates, pulling advertising dollars and taking their ball and going home is NOT staying in the game.

I don't even buy the definition of reason. "Excessive Coverage"? Well yes, ABC has been guilty...but so has almost every television media outlet. LOL! If they think this has been Excessive Coverage, just wait until the hearings....

[a_gray_prius]

Ouch:
Toyota dealers punish ABC-TV for reporting on safety woes - Drive On: A conversation about the cars and trucks we drive - USATODAY.com

The Southeast Toyota dealers, instead, have shifted their ads to local stations in their markets other than ABC as of last week, ABC quotes Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency which handles the account for the 173 dealers. ABC says she tried to dissuade the dealers from making the move.
So far, Toyota hasn't publicly complained that any of the ABC reports were factually incorrect:

Toyota Dealers Pull Ads on ABC for ‘Excessive Stories’ on Recalls - Wheels Blog - NYTimes.com

Toyota Dealers 'Punish' ABC for 'Excessive Stories' - Auto - FOXNews.com

[DeadPhish]

Originally Posted by malorn

This stategy works fine if this is a page 7 story, but this is one of the largest stories in the world right now. In this case an advertising boycott will just make the television stations angry and poorer.

In addition it makes the other stations in those markets richer. Mission accomplished.