Engineering Trust: Can Toyota Do It?

According to a recent study by Consumer Reports, Toyota has lost more than sales in the first quarter. It has experienced a spiraling decline in consumer loyalty.

In April, 57 percent of current Toyota owners said they would "most likely" buy another new vehicle from Toyota, which is down from 70 percent in December, with Honda and Ford the new beneficiaries. While Toyota has lost some consumers permanently, Honda now tops consumer loyalty with 68 percent of Honda owners saying they would buy another Honda. Ford has climbed to 61 percent.

While Toyota did manage to curb sales losses with zero-interest financing and cheap leases, it could be undermining its own long-term brand value as incentives tend to be quick fixes that competitors can match. And, if continued too long, can create consumer expectations to wait for more historic sales once they are over. Toyota's defensive posture throughout its recall crisis may have long-term consequences.

"There's permanent damage there," James Bell, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book, told the Daily Finance. Though not fatal, the recalls require that "Toyota compete in a way they haven't in 25 years."

Restoring Trust Starts At The Local Level With Dealerships.

If Toyota wants to regain long-term consumer loyalty, it may need to reconsider national sales efforts and focus in on where trust really counts — with individual dealerships. While reliability may no longer be associated with the once admired auto manufacturer, dealers could make the difference with one-on-one consumer-dealer communication and outperforming on service expectation.

A recently published five-month study by Foresight Research backs up such analysis. More than 50 percent of all new car buyers surveyed reported the dealership experience as being "highly influential in the purchase process." In fact, dealership experience is the number one factor positively influencing sales during the car buying experience.

"At a time when the dealership network is under increased pressure across the industry, this data clearly supports that no single aspect of the automotive sales and marketing spectrum is more influential than what happens inside the dealership," said Steve Bruyn, president of Foresight Research. "Many buyers visit the dealer early in the shopping process, not just at the end of the process so automotive marketers have a big opportunity to win new customers and build brand equity by offering attractive dealership environments."

To capture a positive in-person experience, the burden primarily resides on the sales team. Study respondents attribute positive experiences with professionalism (90 percent), product knowledge (84 percent), and trustworthiness (66 percent). Sixty-seven percent also said that inviting, modern and well-organized showrooms makes a difference.

When you stop to think about it, the new study goes well beyond auto sales. These factors tend to be the same underlying trait associated with sales professionals, consultants, and even bloggers, online and off.

But for Toyota specifically, the national brand needs to work at non-incentive reasons to drive people into the dealership and then encourage their dealers not to blow it. And, for some dealers, that may require a culture change.

Framing Everything: Fresh Content Project

What makes one message resonate more than others? Who's buying whom in the United Airlines-Continental merger? Why does public relations continue to target impressions? How can social networks and advertising be influential but mistrusted? Why is the Mississippi more mighty than the Missouri?

If your communication firm doesn't understand the flow of communication and how framing makes a difference, they might scratch their heads over any one of those questions. It's all very simple, really. Sooner or later someone frames the conversation. And if it sticks, that's all there is in any story until someone comes along with a better method of measures and a better message that communicates it.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of May 3

• The PR Hype Cycle.
Valeria Maltoni suggests three areas of improvement for public relations, including database management, improvements to press releases, and how news and information spreads online. The suggestions touch on a bigger issue for public relations, shifting away from attempting to control the message by manipulating the media and toward the original intent of developing mutually beneficial relationships with publics, online or off. It makes more sense than trading media in for online influencers.

• From Chris Brogan to Andy Wibbels.
Ari Herzog considers the daily ranking of marketing listed on AdAge Power 150 and how many of the 1,097 blogs show virtually no movement, with Chris Brogan entrenched at number 1 or 2 and people like Andy Wibbles tucked in at 600. Herzog considers whether those at the top are any less insightful than the bottom, which is precisely why we started the fresh content project. Without question, AdAge is a great list with an increasingly erroneous algorithm of measurement.

• Puffery in Merger Communications.
Sean Williams captures a snapshot that few people notice. When two companies merge and claim it is mutual, it usually is not. In presenting facts from the United Airlines-Continental merger, it seems increasingly clear which company is acquiring which company, making all the talk of a mutual merger not much more than an exercise in puffery. It's not the first time nor will it be the last. People like to pick on AT&T because it has been around for so long. The irony is that AT&T was bought by SBC years ago.

• Social Networks Influential, Not Always Trusted.
Twenty-eight percent of Internet users ages 18-34 say they have purchased a product because of something they have seen on a social networking site, but they'll also say they don't trust anyone if you ask them. The same holds true for media. Ask a group of people how they were introduced to a product and they'll mention advertising. Ask them a few weeks later if they trust advertising and they'll say "not a shot." The same phenomenon exists right now with Facebook. Everybody is outraged over privacy issues, but few people are canceling their accounts.

• The Flow of the First Mover.
The Missouri River has 200 miles on the Mississippi River, but the mighty Mississippi gets all the credit. Ike Pigott gets part of the equation right. It all comes down to big mouths that define how we frame up the world. It works that way for business too. Any company that has an opportunity to define the playing field will always have the advantage. All in all, it's a great analogy that ultimately offers up an answer for every other post included today.

Pinning Down Gen Y: Why Millennials Feel Uncertain

For several weeks, I've been enjoying a conservation about Generation Y. First with Bill Sledzik, associate professor at Kent State University. Then Todd Defren, a founder of Shift Communications. And then Jed Hallam, who works at Wolfstar.

Go ahead and read those posts to get caught up if you like. Each of them, from three different generations (I think), offer plenty of good advice for Millennials, especially those hoping to make it through school and/or find employment. I agree with much of what they say, but this post isn't about any of that.

The Only Constant Is Change, But That Change Tends To Be Circular.

This post borrows some insights from Joel DiGirolamo. He wasn't part of the above conversation, but he might as well have been. He was tackling a similar issue from the top down as it relates to evolutionary psychology.

What's interesting is that, throughout history, tribes tend to require less leadership and more consensus during times of abundance. In some ways, this observation seems to fit well with the American Revolution.

When the founding fathers grew weary of what they perceived to be shackles, they didn't do so because they were destitute. They did it because there was seemingly endless abundance in America and they wanted more personal control over that abundance.

Flash forward to today. Millennials primarily grew up in an era of abundance, which required less competition and more consensus. But unfortunately for them, because economies ebb and flow, they finished this streak of abundance only to discover a society focused on scarcity. So, while I'm not big on labels, one could make a pretty good case that this shared experience does set Gen Y apart. And by many employer accounts, most Millennials don't start off as tough as Sledzik or Defren or even I would like.

Interestingly enough, when you look at the push back, most didn't come from Millennials. On the contrary, many Millennials like Hallam recognize that hard times are best met by effective leaders and a willingness to meet challenges with a certain tenacity. So who pushed back? Boomers, specifically those who long for their continued role as enablers; and some Gen Xers, specifically those who claim to identify more with Gen Y (which they don't, given many Gen Yers were happy to hear the message).

All in all, what this might demonstrate to me is that Gen Y does need more tough love and most are willing to accept it in exchange for a new kind of inclusive leadership. Unfortunately, from my perspective, there doesn't seem to be enough leadership out there. And why would there be? Most modern authorities surfed a wave of abundance without ever becoming prepared to lead.

Huh. This kind of atmosphere is almost too perfect for something Orwellian, unless Gen Y empowers itself (given the apparent lack of Sledziks and Defrens). So my advice is simple enough. If you want a fair shake, one my intern was convinced didn't exist out there, then you have to learn to look for people who will empower you rather than those who aim to enable you.

And as far as all those other feelings? Well, they just aren't that special. And if you don't believe me, read from Orwell.

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." — George Orwell

Integrating Communication: No More Lines

Whether it's the Preakness with its "Get Your Preak On" advertising miss or it's the TomTom GPS ad that shares a voiceover session with Darth Vader, the lines between advertising and public relations are often blurred. As advertising campaigns sometimes become the topic of social media and social media feeds media, the best and the worst campaigns elicit public responses best left to public relations professionals.

Of course, today's communication streams don't have to be linear. The source of the original communication or reaction to an event can be initiated in any medium. Take the recent success of Liquid Mountaineering. How do you classify it?

Is it entertainment, with the participants merely sharing their new sport? Is it social media, given its home base blog and attention the it received? Is it public relations, given its exposure as a real new sport by WUSA in Washington, D.C. coverage? Is it advertising, with creative and professional long-format production quality?


As it turns out, it is an advertisement for Hi-Tec Sports that relies on social media as the medium. It has since earned as much media attention as it has its own Internet fan base, making the need for public relations as important as the original production.

The Future Of Communication Isn't Integrated. Integrated Communication Is Now.

Sure, there have been some complaints from agencies, marketing specialists, social media pros, and public relations professionals that prospective clients are confused. It's no longer uncommon for pitch lists to include some representative companies from each discipline. But while most of them look at each other's skills as competitive, the truth is that they are complementary.

Integrated communication isn't so much a point of view anymore. It's critical to successful communication. As for the future, the only firms that will survive are those that embrace it or learn to partner with companies that can round out areas where they are considerably deficient. As for the rest, saying you can do it all if you can't only lasts so long before the in-house marketing teams are brought up to speed.

The takeaway here is simple enough. A high percentage of successful and naturally occurring viral campaigns over the last year have employed integrated communication. A high percentage of failures have relied on communication well within the lines of a single discipline. Color outside the lines.

Closing Out Cows: Final Lessons From A Dead Network

Once upon a time there was an increasingly popular social media network that resembled Twitter. It had a memorable name. It had a lovable mascot. And its member base seemed to have a mission to make it a "Twitter killer."

Truth be told, very few network knock-offs, even with slightly enhanced services, ever have a chance of supplanting popularity. While it may change one day, numbers attract numbers. But even so, we had placed the network on a watch list because the application did have something that Twitter didn't. It had better multimedia functionality.

But then something happened. In September 2008, Utterz changed its name to Utterli. It traded in its mascot for something resembling a Sprite logo. And its members were surprised, and then disgusted, by the lack of communication about the change. It was a disaster and I had no problem calling it as such.

"As much as you might characterize it as a 'disaster,' our customer base has grown substantially since the change - and the growth rate is rising," said Michael Bayer, CEO of Utterli. "That's GREAT! I call that a success."

Bayer went on to say that I was fishing for attention. He said I insulted him. And he insisted that despite community feelings, it was his decision to make. Besides, he implied, my round-up of member feedback wasn't enough. I wasn't a member anyway.

After that, we tracked the steady visitation decline that followed in the six months after its claimed "successful" name change. We almost followed up on the post then too. But it didn't seem worthwhile to re-engage a defensive CEO. So I promptly forgot about it. So did everyone else.

In fact, I hadn't thought about Utterli again until reading Doug Haslam's post that Utterli was dead. In truth, it had died in September 2008. And, almost sadly, a short one-and-a-half years later, Utterli didn't even have time to say goodbye.

As for all those promises that Bayer made about enhancements that would carry the service forward? According to the ByteMonkey Chronicles (which is also credited with the image accompanying today's post), it was very much the opposite. ByteMonkey says even then there was an underlying feeling among the users that the company wasn't quite doing so well.

Lessons For Networks And Participants.

Networks. While seeing what could have been a successful service come and go is never pleasant, there are a few lessons that can be taken away. For network owners, it' simple. I've said it before. Unlike product companies, you are only as successful as your members. And without them, you're nothing.

So abrupt change is bad. Sure, Twitter and Facebook can get away with it nowadays because they've reached a critical mass of sorts with no clear alternatives that support the numbers. But in the case of a brand like Utterz, improper communication with the community is a killer. Never mind what Bayer said in response to my critique on his company's rebranding roll out, the truth was that they didn't do any of it (and if they did, then they did it all wrong).

Add to that knowledge that anything done for investment capital or with the hope of being sold is generally a bad idea until you have the cash in hand. And even then, the guidelines for operating a successful venture after a sale or infusion of cash doesn't replace the community commitment. There are scores of social networks that have failed. And, there are more that will eventually fail or fade away too.

Participants. If you continue to rely on network tactics alone, one day you may find yourself with nothing. As reported by ByteMonkey and Haslam, Utterli isn't just dead. All of the member content and contributions are dead too.

So too is any need for Utterz tips and Utterz tactics that are useless because that community is no more.

In other words, don't fall in love with any network unless you can back up your content. Case study closed.

Blending Content: The Next Step In Journalism

There is one simple reason you don't hear much talk about broadcast-Internet convergence anymore. While public adoption is moving forward at a steady pace, current technology and infrastructure suggest it already happened. Did you miss it?

Sure, there are a few kinks to be worked out, most notably a seamless transition between the content we already access on the computer and the television set (or smart phone) where we view it. But technically, that barrier doesn't exist either. The population as a whole just doesn't know how to make it work yet.

Blended Content In Beta.

If you have a hard time envisioning what the future will look like, there is a real life case study in the making. While it is still crude in its presentation, the future will largely consist of blended content — Web desintations with a combination of articles, blogs, photo galleries, and programming — managed by partnerships between media companies like NBC Digital Networks and major corporations like Procter & Gamble with the content provided by a mix of broadcasters, journalists, authors, experts, and social media personalities.

Can't envision it? Visit Life Goes Strong. While the name rings as weak as any picked-by-committee offering might, Life Goes Strong provides a phase one preview into targeted content. In this case, according to Procter & Gamble, baby boomers between the ages of 45 and 65 years of age. The content is organized in traditional vertical channels — family (www.familygoesstrong.com), style (www.stylegoesstrong.com) and technology (www.techgoesstrong.com) — with contributors ranging from a contributing editor at Newsweek to a former professional fashion buyer.

As mentioned, the initial foundation for the launch is rather crude. It looks very Web 2.0 with a remarkably weak organizational structure that makes fluff seem as interesting as real news content. Much of the content is short. Some of the content is as short as three graphs, leaving readers with the task of answering their own questions. (You can tell someone was convinced that short content was the way to go.) The photos are miserable. And while the release promised video content, it's difficult to find today.

All in all, it's about two steps behind from what I proposed to interested parties three years ago. It didn't move forward for lack of funding. Yet, despite the problems with Life Goes Strong (including a low opinion of its target audience), it represents a very crude glimpse of the future. And it's more likely to supplant what we think of journalism today than my friend Ike Pigott's vision of an embedded journalist.

Moving Beyond Beta.

So what would make Life Goes Strong work beyond a better name and pandering to people who recognize Robert Scoble on the watered-down tech section? Here are five critical areas that need improvement...

• Life Goes Strong has no sense of community. Its old fashioned, soft news nugget presentation is as expected from mass media. You only need to look as far as Facebook to see that people like content.

• The short article format is better suited for a mobile introduction. In general, people want their questions answered in articles over sound bites. The summaries they present as articles are best left as content introductions and not content.

• The concept of blended content requires live video streams (like traditional programming), automatically archived for later video viewing (library), and articles that can be optionally accessed for more in-depth analysis and/or factual background.

• It's obvious too much is borrowed from their original joint venture at Petside.com. While Petside.com reaches 1.5 million people per month, it also relies on the passion people have for their pets. Long tail broad content models can be built on a niche model and expect to capture the same interest.

• Like many sites, the article-blog mushup leaves little to be desired. The future of blended content will require some obvious devisions, letting readers know which content is objective news gathering and which is opinion puff. Currently, this has become one of the number one problems at industry trade pubs like Adweek and AdAge. Sometimes you click on a link and get a well-written article. Sometimes you get five graphs from someone who thinks they know something.

But again, despite where it falls short, Life Goes Strong represents something. As it moves beyond beta, it means content convergence (video, photos, articles, blogs, etc. working together) and format convergence (assuming the content works with smart phones and iPads).

More importantly, it's something for communicators to watch. Even if it doesn't get off the ground with the financial backing of several deep-pocket companies, you can expect more Web desintations like this one. Only better. And that will likely mean that all those tactics you've been developing in the last few years to bypass media will be gone, right out the window.