Time to follow up with Toyota.  The favorite, least favorite, most controversial car company in the United States.  It’s been almost three weeks since the previous Toyota post, and there have been several developments in their post-recall efforts.

The first and most obvious effort is Toyota’s new ad campaign.  They have come out with several ads, including “Commitment” and “Restore” to try and offset the 12.4% sales decline in February.  While their Twitter-based social media strategy is working behind the scenes, these ads are the approach Toyota has taken to be the face of their rebuilding efforts.

Toyota is also running ads focused on satisfied customers.  For example, the Murphy family was quite satisfied with their Toyotas (purchased February 20th) and feel “exceptionally safe.”  These ads do a good job focusing on their loyal customers,  and fit with Toyota’s “Moving Forward” slogan, but they do little to address a critical issue.

Companies make mistakes, recalls have happened countless times, but there is almost always a sincere apology.  Toyota’s new campaigns fail to simply say “Sorry.”  They talk about “fixing recalls” and stopping production to focus on customers, but they don’t actually say sorry.  These mellow and somber ads could easily come off as Toyota trying to smooth talk and sell cars, and ignoring their mistake.

Whether or not the ads will be successful in mending the wrongs has yet to be seen, but Toyota is on a slippery slope.  If the ads are perceived as fake or misleading, further damage to the brand and company will likely follow.  For example, the “Commitment” ad claims Toyota is customer focused, yet the company internally celebrated saving $100 million at the expense of its consumers.

I hope US consumers focus on the quality of the company, not the quality of the cars, when following the Toyota proceedings.  I believe the internal document celebrating their limited recall (only 55,000 of the faulty vehicles were originally recalled in 2007 as opposed to the 8.5 million recalled in January) should be highlighted and used as a true example of Toyota’s priorities.  Toyota intentionally negotiated a smaller recall, to make money, and knowingly left faulty cars in circulation.   Doesn’t exactly fit into their current campaign.

Toyota’s ads are an attempt to “quick fix” the brand and return to business as usual.  While they ads are well done and “touching” I hope consumers are reluctant to do so.  Have you been following the Toyota story?  Do you feel they owe an explanation for the internal document?