Toyota USA apology commercial

Hadn't seen it on tv yet- thanks for the link. That's pretty bold of them to say the part they did in the "in recent days..." I think it's odd that they're being that hard on themselves. Very unusual for an automotive manufacturing company to say such things!

 

I hope this doesn't stop here just for damage-control PR exercise.

Toyota, get it fixed and get it done.

Remember you are an engineering company and not a feel-good campaigner.

Next time, LISTEN to your customers.

 

I actually think that's an excellent commercial. It's an apology but it also reminds people that Toyota's have been a big part of there lives and have a long history of reliabilty...something people probably should be reminded of right now.

However, it's just my opinion that repairing Toyota's image is going to take some time. Getting out of the negative media spotlight would help the most.

The movie Patton with George C. Scott starts with Patton giving a speech about how America loves a Winner..expects a winner...

Well there's the rub with apologizing too much. Not trying to apply admitted stereotypes, but I think there is a difference between American attitude and Asian attitude. The Asian attitude leans toward apology and "shame" for mistakes, where the American attitude is simply....be the best...win... (GM's recent "May the Best Car Win" campaign). You didn't see GM running a lot of "Sorry we've screwed up so badly lately" commercials. Really I think it's clearly debatable which is worse, a huge recall or a huge bail-out? But the two approachs to recovery are interesting in their differences.

But I like that commercial. I think it's a process and probably what Toyota needs to do right now.
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Makes me want to go out buy another Toyota.

 

It made me leak.

What I'd like to hear is "we're not using cheap parts from outside suppliers anymore. We're going back to actually testing the parts we get, that go on the cars we sell."

I think they did say that somewhere, right?

 

That's why I bought a Toyota.

 

That's part of the subliminal message. In the final B/W photo with the young couple and the Toyota salesman, the salesman has his fingers crossed....

 

It took me watching it three times to fully take it in, but after watching three times, I said to myself "I like it."

When they returned to the black & white photo at the end, it started to hit an emotional cord. I'm glad to see Toyota airing a commercial like this - to remind people of the quality of Toyota. I'm undecided which sounds better: "in recent days," or "recently in the 10,000 parts on our cars, we had one problem." However, I'm sure Toyota had a lot of people sitting around conference tables, burning the midnight oil to decide which phrase would work best. If I had been creating the commercial, I would have added some crash-test dummy footage in there.
A big plus I noticed was that all of the factory workers they showed appeared to be very focused on their work and pragmatic. I'm glad to see it doesn't look like the UAW (the guy would be eating a sandwich and talking on a cell phone while tightening the bolts).

 

About the only thing I don't like about the commercial is the "moving forward" slogan under the Toyota emblem at the end...sounds like they might be having a braking or sudden unintended acceleration thing going on...they really might want to reconsider that slogan for now...might as well have said "not stopping"...Jon Stewart's staff will most certainly pick that up...

 

An apology is nice, but what are they going to do about the reduction in value our car's have suffered due to this mess? If, as an individual, I reduced the value of another individual's possession, I doubt an "I'm sorry" would be legally sufficient. However, based on every previous post in this thread, the ad worked EXACTLY as it was designed to work.

 

The ad is running regularly on MSNBC & Fox. I put this with the other "feel good" ads. Instead of spending the money telling me you are going to fix a problem (that you said didn't exist) just FIX THE PROBLEM. On the bright side, if my shifter jams again the dealership will probably be open.

 

On the Toyota super bowl commercial it also said "moving forward" at the end. It just got my attention. I think this is just a speed bump. Toyota will come back stronger than ever.

 

Nice commercial, they say they are going to fix things and I hope they do. But how are they going to fix all the crappy dealerships? I wish them luck, their going to need it.

 

YES! I just want the dealership service people to stop trying to rip me off with loads of additional services and being totally unresponsive and dismissive of issues that I report (e.g HID headlight aim). I mean one dealership couldn't even do an oil change right. I talked to like 3 service people. Nobody was listening.

 

:focus:

Wow.

Thanks Evan.

I never DID get an apology in 1973 ... when my 1972 Vega fell apart at 13,000 miles. In fact I saw a few smirks that seemed to say, "sucker". There's quite a different philosophy now days ... what with corporations owning up to their faults.

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That ad was disgusting. They could have just said sorry, but no. They had to lie. They lied that they stopped production because they care about their customers. They stopped production because the government forced Toyota's hand. They had NO intention of stopping production, and even said so, until the government stepped in.