Toyota is the big business news story these days. Global projections indicate that it will soon to overtake General Motors as the world's largest car company.
No one's afraid of being number one--unless you're a Japanese carmaker and half of your profits come from the U.S. of A. "We constantly need to think about the potential backlash," Toyota CEO tells Business Week in next's week's top story. Fearing this patriotic backlash, Toyota has ramped up its social responsibility quotient: funding literacy programs, dispatching efficiency gurus to local hospitals, giving gifts to neuroscience, and sponsoring environmental awards. Still, the Nascar crowd has no truck with Toyota, Japanophobia rages, and Toyota is gaining no traction in the heartland. Only 15% of Toyota's total US sales are in the Midwest. Toyota has only 5% share of the Texas pickup market and 11% of the Midwest market, despite a 17% national share.
What kind of cause-marketing program should Toyota develop to woo the NASCAR dads? Reducing greenhouse gases will get you nowhere with this crowd, many of whom even think the global warming theory is full of hot air. Toyota's literacy program benefiting Hispanics in San Antonio is great, but it's probably not the Hispanic immigrants who are avoiding Japanese cars for patriotic reasons.
My advice to Toyota: Think Mom and apple pie. Go after the causes dear to these people's hearts. Veterans' and military families' organizations. Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Pentagon Memorial Fund.
Also, get the staff to volunteer in local schools so that they get visibility in local communities, and locals see that the good people of Toyota are the people next door.
Toyota should still maintain its environmental programs, of course, since its image has received a couple of nicks in that area. Support evidence-based research and energy programs in local schools. But most of all, stick to the Mom and Apple Pie formula. Toyota can't cure xenophobia, but it can outpatriot the patriots.
-Steve Adler
Cause For Concern
In his just published new book, Charity Brands CEO Stephen M. Adler gives a look at one of the most inventive minds in the industry, and recounts his experiences developing some of the world’s most-recognized non-profit/corporate programs and sponsorships, providing a background and analysis of programs developed by others in cause-related marketing, a market segment that will grow to $1.34 billion in 2006, a 20.2% increase over 2005. Purchase book here.
