The Swagger Wagon

What’s all the internet buzz about Toyota’s new Sienna? It's Toyota's attempt to make driving a minivan seem cool. According to U.S. News & World Report, the Japanese automaker has launched its online marketing campaign for the 2011 Sienna minivan… or as they call it the “Swagger Wagon.” Toyota has released a series of promos via YouTube, resembling a hilarious music video, which even features T-Pain’s signature auto-tune sound! The Swagger Family is a stereotypical white American, suburban family who rhymes about everyday family matters, from booboos to Yoohoos. Since its release in May 2010, the video has received over 7 million hits on YouTube. Talk about going viral.

According to Motherproof.com, “The folks at Toyota are working really hard to convince people that it’s cool to own a minivan. Whether they’re succeeding is up for debate, but at least they’re keeping us entertained with the ‘Swagger Wagon’ commercials for the Toyota Sienna.”

In Las Vegas this past week, Toyota released its newest addition to the Swagger Wagon family at the 2010 SEMA Car Show. The Swagger Wagon Supreme was designed to be a bracing antidote to the negative mom-mobile image of most minivans. Toyota stated, “The custom minivan dismisses the notion that to drive a minivan is to sacrifice personal style in favor of family functionality". Edmunds Insideline announced the Swagger Wagon Supreme is fully loaded with chrome wheels, rear spoiler, custom chrome exhaust tips and a "Blue Swagger Opal" paint job. Don’t forget about the bright Crayola-like shaded seats for the children.

Although the Sienna was not one of Toyota’s vehicles recalled for faulty acceleration, the automaker did recall 600,000 minivan models manufactured between 1998 and 2010 for reported corrosion problems in their spare tire carrier cables. Nonetheless, it just goes to show how a series of entertaining YouTube videos can help repair Toyota’s flawed reputation.

Till next time!

Graduate to a Toyota

Good news for all you new college alumni out there...

If you have obtained a college degree in the past two years, you may qualify for the Toyota College Graduate Finance Program. Toyota is offering college grads an incentive of $1,000 to purchase a new vehicle!

To attract these college graduates, Toyota developed a website strictly to promote this deal. It comes equip with user friendly language and youthful coloring. There is even a mini-dictionary that explains contractual terms in much simpler wording.The website also has social media links to both Facebook and Twitter. It is very dissimilar from their corporate website. I think Toyota’s public relations team must have had their hands in this project.

I have to admit, I took advantage of this offer in July and I could not be happier. However, with Toyota's corporate reputation at an all time low, I wonder if this will affect their financial performance. This week I read a few scholarly articles about this topic and came to a couple conclusions. Consumers are very interested in how companies behave. This has a great deal of influence upon their consumption behavior. Thus, financial pay-off can be gained from good behavior. With all the legal claims and denial statements, it appears that Toyota has not had the best behavior this past year.

Additionally, consumers value companies with good corporate responsibility. If Toyota wants to regain credibility amongst their consumers, they should start by giving back to the community. Lastly, the greater the news coverage, the better the company's financial performance. Ideally, this would be said for positive news coverage, although scholars have yet to prove it. As I stated last week, Toyota has see a slight increase in sales over the past six months. This could be a result of all their news coverage, even if it has been predominately negative.

Catch you next week!