Toyota and The Burden of Sustainable Brands
Friday, February 5, 2010 at 11:27AM 
Toyota’s brand and messaging have sadly fallen victim to Newton’s law about an object in motion. Its long-running ad campaign promises that its cars keep “Moving You Forward.” Turns out, they keep moving you forward because their faulty accelerators and brakes won’t let you stop.
The impact these recalls will have on the Toyota brand could be significant. Toyotas have become symbols of quality and value from a company with a strong reputation for corporate responsibility. This week’s events and revelations clearly cast a dark shadow.
What may be an even tougher blow to Toyota is that one of the vehicles involved in this fiasco is the Prius – the beloved hybrid vehicle innovator and long a beacon of more sustainable, more eco-friendly automobiles.
Sustainable products continually fight the brand baggage of being perceived as potentially lower performing. Add to that the premium (though steadily decreasing) cost of the Prius and you have a recipe for a crap sandwich. Costs more. Does less. It’s a lethal enough combination for a traditional automobile (or any product for that matter), and doubly deadly for a “green” one.
I’m curious to see how this will unfold and how Toyota will respond – and if the Prius may lose its position atop the auto hybrid ladder. What do you think?
Prius, Toyota, advertising, automobiles, brand, branding, cars, hybrid
The Green Police Are Coming to Get You
In case you missed it Audi ran ad some are calling controversial during the Superbowl this past weekend. Watch Below:
Upon rewatching the ad, I realized that the "green police" aren't as mall cop I thought-more like all powerful goon squad. They are oppressive, they are frightening, and they are intruding on your personal life in Big Brother-style ways. What's worse is the humor I found in this ad didn't come from where I located it...I thought it was an ironic statement on the ineffectiveness of green legislation (solidifying my status as green dork), but reading the comment page on YouTube, or trolling the internet for commentary the vast majority of people who watched, even those who watched with me during the Superbowl found the ad funny because this is exactly how the green movement makes them feel. The ad played into what many (most?) Americans seem to feel every day. That a group of eggheads want to outlaw basic tenants of American life. That choice is being restricted everyday by a band of Segway-riding eco-facists and that there is no escape. (Unless of course you buy a deisel Audi)
It would be easy to throw up our hands and say "well this was the cynical act of a car company looking to push product." OK perhaps, but there's more to it than that.
When you want a person or a group of people to take on a policy or take certain actions (go somewhere) there are two methods you can employ. The first, you can push them, which in short hand says:
What you've been doing is wrong! It's harmful, and it needs to stop!
If the party in question is relatively weak (some puppies, small children, and politicians are good examples) they will back down. If they aren't weak (say 50% or more of the American populous.) Then a different strategy is called for.
That strategy is basically to get the party in question to arrive at choice you want by convincing them it was their idea in the first place. There is no good short hand for this kind of methodology. It involves a process of showing how "green" options really can be better options, and perhaps some innovation. On green choices being better choices. My entire apartment uses CFL lamps. If you came in you'd never notice, why? I buy good ones and I use them with shades in decent lamps-no visible swirlies, nice color, less electricity. When it comes up in conversation the first thing people say is "I didn't even realize." That's selling someone on a solution without trying.
Now on innovation-I cannot for the life of me figure out why our two choices at the grocery store are so bad. The environmentally horrendous (but oh so convenient) plastic bag or the eco-friendly (but difficult to carry) paper bag. Can no one out there invent a paper bag that is easier to carry? If such a paper bag 2.0 existed consumers would use it, they'd forget about plastic bags, and that would be one debate settled. They would arrive at the "better" choice all on there own...no pushing required.
The same is true in the built environment. For the record, I am in favor of stronger regulations when it comes to energy code. I also recognize that such regulation leads to a push/push back scenario. We saw it in the EU when the incandescent light bulb began it's phase out (see my previous article "How to get the Incandescent Ban Right"), and we'll continue to see it as legacy technologies are substituted for new ones. People want to feel that they have a choice not that the green police are choosing for them.