Toyota Engages NASCAR fans

I don’t know about you, but the several feet of snow in front of my house is really inhibiting my lifestyle. I’m spending even more time than usual with popular culture, including lots of unavoidable advertising. Which brings me to my viewing of the Daytona 500 NASCAR race on Sunday, which was a sheer act of desperation. I cannot think of anything more boring than watching automobile racing. Yes, I know it’s the fastest growing sport (is it a sport?) in the United States. But don’t count me among its fans. One of the ads I saw was for Toyota racing, which directed the viewer to their website. It’s a really interactive website, and provides a good example of participatory advertising. In particular, I was drawn to the “Design it. Enter it” link that enabled the participant to do all kinds of fun things to a race car. And when finished, you can submit it to a contest. I spent a good deal of time playing around with this pretty cool feature (you can now tell I’m really stir-crazy!). I bring this to your attention, because I spent a considerable amount of time with this brand, and that’s the goal of participatory advertising: to create deep engagement that is sustained over time. Engagement is the new metric (way to measure) advertising effectiveness. We all know that most 30-second commercials go in one ear and out the other, so if an advertiser can get you to participate with their brand in some form or fashion over a sustained period of time, the likely result is deep engagement. Different brands go about it different ways – Starbucks is the pre-eminent user of multiple engagement platforms. But this Toyota website is a good example of how the “new” advertising works. Check it out and let me know what you think – even if you aren’t a fan of Danica Patrick.

Toyota and Tylenol Are Not the Same

A classic case study in the history of public relations is the handling by Johnson and Johnson of the Tylenol tragedy in which capsules laced with cyanide were discovered to be the cause of death of seven people in the Chicago area. Because of J&J’s swift action, pulling Tylenol off the shelves of the nation’s retailers, the company in time was able to bring the product back to market and restore the brand’s image. In other words, they utilized a recall and continuous communication from top management to turn a tragedy into a public relations success story. That was 1983.

Fast forward to 2010 and Toyota, by some accounts, is employing similar tactics in halting production and sales of eight of its vehicles. That action is in addition to the massive recall of several million vehicles. According to one pr case book I consulted, the lessons of the Tylenol incident include: candor with the public, integrity of the brand, proactive leadership by management, and effective feedback mechanisms. So, many companies, including GM, Firestone, Johns Manville and Proctor and Gamble, chose in years past not to follow what in retrospect seems like the commonsense public relations practiced by J&J.

But I don’t think the problem that J&J faced and the one Toyota faces are as parallel as some seem to think. First, J&J’s problem was domestic;  Toyota’s is global. Communication media are vastly different now, especially with regard to the ways in which consumers participate in the process. Just do a Twitter search on the word “Toyota” to see what people are saying about the recall. Or go to YouTube and view some of the myriad videos that have been posted regarding this issue. J&J was better able to control the output of their communication, to offer up their corporate leader as chief spokesperson, and to time their communication efforts to their advantage. With Toyota, the media environment is 24/7. And, everyone is or can be a spokesperson on the issue: the president of Toyota doesn’t command any more presence or authority than Joe the Blogger. In an age of participatory media, it will be interesting to see how this issue unfolds and whether or not it will become a model for a world enveloped by social media, and whether like Tylenol, it will find a place in the annals of future public relations textbooks. 

Voting and the Super Bowl

Super Bowl advertising continues to evolve both in terms of who is advertising and the nature of the ads themselves. To the first point, it appears that at least to some extent the old guard is out, as venerable Super Bowl advertisers like Pepsi are out this year. The event is becoming a place where lesser-known brands, well, like Hyundai are choosing to make a big splash. In fact that may be what super bowl advertising is all about – creating an impact that otherwise would be difficult to achieve. Aligning a brand with such an important cultural ritual like watching the super bowl can skyrocket brand awareness. GoDaddy.com is one such brand that comes to mind. But for products like Pepsi, where awareness levels are already quite high, there isn’t much the Super Bowl can do for the brand. Pepsi has, this year, opted for a different route to brand building. To the second point, I’ve noticed the continuation of a trend in Super Bowl advertising that relates to this blog’s title – participatory advertising. There appears to be several if not many opportunities for consumers to vote in and around Super Bowl advertising. For example, in a previous blog post I pointed to Careerbuilder.com as a website where one could vote for their favorite commercial, the winner will air on the Super Bowl. Doritos has been employing this technique for three years and continues with its “Crash the Super Bowl” promotion. Voting is a cultural ritual that we usually think of when considering the election of political candidates. As advertising can also be considered a social practice--another term for ritual which I write about in my book Advertising in Everyday Life--it is perhaps understandable why advertisers want consumers to participate in advertising in a somewhat similar way as another cultural ritual – voting. The ability to step into the polling booth and cast your vote for a political candidate is a form of personal empowerment. This practice – voting – also works in the world of advertising where marketers want to empower consumers, at least on the symbolic level. So, the Super Bowl represents a unique opportunity to step into the polling booth, metaphorically, and vote for your favorite advertisement, becoming an empowered consumer. But to what end, I ask?

Social media: Nobody doesn’t like it

Sara Lee has made a foray into social media with a series of webisodes that utilize real moms hawking Sara Lee products. The use of “real moms” lends an air of authenticity, which we know is important for believability. Beyond that, the web series is posted on Facebook, YouTube and Metacafe. Social media are the cornerstone of the “new advertising.” Added to the appearance of the video series on social media websites are blogging and tweeting. Who would have ever thought that advertising would come to this? But these are the tactics of the moment and fit nicely into the rubric of Participatory Advertising, with engagement being the measurement of success. Perhaps it’s these difficult economic times that are driving marketers like Sara Lee toward the use of social media. The use of social media websites with their interactive qualities should provide a good lesson in marketing economics. This is especially important given new tools to measure engagement in the marketplace. While traditional advertising may work well at establishing awareness and it may serve as an important reminder, brands that want to engage deeply with their target markets much utilize social media.