Remember the Pet Food
Remember the pet food recall? Remember how brand names were never known as to who was behind it? That everyone kept saying it was the Chinese (and who knows what “Chinese” is – which one of the billion people is responsible?).
Well, now, we are seeing the other side. The side that I spoke about in previous posts. How, as a brand, if you come forward and admit your fault and how you are going to fix/change that fault, people, ALL people will forgive.
Toyota has done that. They stepped up and took the blame – on a piece of hardware that they do not produce – one of their 100,000 vendors makes it. But, they did it right – not be like American companies and blame others, but, step forward and take it.
It’s too bad that our government had to make it political (wonder why they didn’t do that with the pet food or the Firestone tires that were killing everyone).
Toyota lost nothing yesterday. They actually gained. People saw that an individual was taking the blame and was willing to do whatever it took to fix it.
I would be surprised if Toyota lost one customer yesterday after watching the president make attrition.
That was brand management at its best – learn from it.
