Trashing of success: Inevitably, Toyota will be next target


By Mike Hudson / Special to The Detroit News

Crisp images of a glorious wind flow past. The breeze plays in the grasses and open fields. It fills bubbles blown by a whimsical boy. Adults take deep, full breaths and smirk with satisfaction. "What if the air was clean again?" Toyota asks from my TV.

As shameless corporate gloating goes, this rivals Trump. Toyota -- a company well on its way to being the largest car maker on the planet -- is dressing like a tree hugging college sophomore. Why? Because a tiny fraction of the cars it sells don't pollute as much as the rest of the cars they sell.

Next will be a "What if our kids read books again?" commercial from Xbox. Or a "What if women could be treated equal?" spot, brought to you by Playboy.

Indeed, Toyota's claims drew the attention of environmentalists who took out an ad attacking the company's total impact on pollution. But to the average consumer, Toyota remains the environmental champion. Incredibly, Toyota has made its 800-pound gorilla as light as Curious George.


The harder they fall


People tend to revolt against a far-away favorite. How many times have the 26-time World Champion New York Yankees been cheered against by people with no ties to the game? McDonald's and Wal-Mart -- two brands worthy of a protest on most college campuses -- are hated because of the overwhelming success of predictable burgers and price rollbacks.

The auto game is no different. General Motors got the Michael Moore treatment. The Ford Explorer got the lawsuit treatment. And the Hummer, a car no less inefficient or more common than gas-guzzling sports cars, has been tarred-and-feathered.

Yet as Toyota systematically searches and destroys everything standing between it and complete North American domination, it emerges relatively clean. As if Toyota needed any more advantages over Detroit.


Loving the underdog


This trashing of success is an unavoidable reaction of people born of revolution. They push for change. They crave competition to challenge the powerful . Toyota has avoided this aggravation. They don't have strikes. They don't close plants. All Toyota does is start your car when your key turns. And for that, they deserve all the credit they get from consumers.

But over the long term, having a product people like doesn't forgive success. In the end, it just breeds more resentment. If it didn't, we'd all be wearing "I love ExxonMobil" shirts.

So when GM isn't No. 1 anymore and Ford gets that impressive sliver of its line switched to hybrids and Hummer starts making commuter cars, there will be a massive target painted on Toyota by the usual suspects.

And then, those same gloating execs will be haunted by another figurative question: "What if we were the underdog again?"

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autoscon...F01-376145.htm

 

This is a great point. And its already happening. People hate Toytoa and Lexus in particular b/c they are the best selling year after year and win awards year after year and place tops or high in comparisons year after year.

Its also like Micheal Jordan and the Bulls, people just started hating on Mike and the BUlls b/c they were spanking everyone year after year.

Well, I'd rather be on top and have people throw rocks UP at me, than on the bottom, having boulders thrown my way

 

there has to be change all the time, when your on rtop ppl start to view you as the man and that translates into something bad. we all do it at some point or another no matter what our percieved gripe is about

 

well, I dont think people hate Toyota, some Internet bashers who for whatever reasone love big 3, hate toyota.
Normal people have nothing to do with that. People are in awe of Toyota accomplishments, it is not perceived as mafia type of organization :-).

Toyota is where they are because they have great products and their customers like their products and reccomend it to others. That can only bring positive side to the whole story.

And thats why Toyota is working hard on openning local factories - so people wouldnt feel as if they are taking local jobs, which is pretty much only gripe you could have about Toyota. But with two new plants by 2008 in the USA alone, I dont see how can this happen.

 

Yeah...some types will look for failure to validate their feeble views. It seems that if it's too perfect a kink helps them to believe. There will always be an example and one to motivate others to move to greater heights. All a cycle that if we're here long enough, we'll see it go around.

I don't expect Toyota to be any different than the marketing tides. The rise, peak and decline. For how long each wave lasts...

 

That is one of the downside of success. When you are number one everyone wants to be in your spot and will do everything they can to get your spot. It goes to show you can please some of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time. When you do the right thing no one will hardly notice but once you do something that is not right (maybe a small bad thing) the whole world knows and it's totally blown out of proportion and exagerated beyond belief. It's human nature. When Toyota becomes number one they will not be number one forever, because all good things will eventually come to an end and that's fine as long as Toyota keeps doing what they are doing people will continue to buy their products.

 

To avoid backlash Toyota must remain humble and not believe everything said about it, or its own "public relations".

The huge positive for the past couple of decades about Toyota has been that they make highly reliable, highly refined vehicles. They've mostly aimed at 'mainstream' buyers but have ventured upmarket with Lexus, and 'downmarket' with Scion. They used to be thought of as well priced but that's less true now as they've taken advantage of their reputation to justify higher prices.

But there are valid negatives or question marks, such as:

- A lot of their vehicles are WAY too safe in design - they're BORING. Of course a lot of people want boring or safe but not everyone.

- They're pretty rigid in product configurations with packages. Some people (not everyone and obviously not the majority) resent it.

- Sometimes their dealers are arrogant, particularly in strong markets. I experienced this with our first Lexus purchase, and twice with our second Lexus purchase. The second time was so bad I bought it from a dealer over 100 miles away where a dealer was keen to find the car I wanted (it took him one phonecall the other dealers obviously couldn't be bothere to do) with a very friendly and humble but professional manner.

- Hybrids are a big question mark. They're expensive, provide questionable if any economic benefit and often have weak real world fuel economy improvement. And the potential repair cost in out years could be staggering.

These aren't major issues but if Toyota/Lexus/Scion gets perceived as arrogant or worse, insincere about any of their claims then there will be a backlash. They also run the risk of being perceived as an economic threat despite putting plants in the U.S. as the U.S. carmarkers falter. The Toyota CEO has already said he thinks it will be a bad thing if GM falters.

Anyway, no company is perfect, but Toyota has been and is right now the most perfect car maker the world has ever seen.

 

Well IBM, GE, Microsoft, Dell, Wal*Mart and many others have been and will likely continue to be market leaders for a very long time.

 

Yes, the mentioned corporations will be market leaders for a very long time but not forever.