Toyota, with its unprecedented response of stopping sales of certain makes, massive recall and letters to customers, has shown its customers that it is as serious about quality today as in the past. But it’s taking another hit now due to a problem with their green-leading Prius making their customer relationship work that much harder.

Despite media criticism that they are doing too little too late, I believe the standard Toyota is expected to hit is unreasonably high.  Goodwill they have historically generated with customers will provide them with more air cover than the media is willing to give them.

Here are a few examples of how they are trying to repair the bond customers have with the brand; time will tell if it’s enough.

1. Official website with a wealth of information: toyota.com/recall
2. YouTube Channel featuring recall related videos and the “Toyota Commitment” TV commercial: youtube.com/toyotausa
3. Experts on Prius Facebook page answering questions in real time. Check out the “Ask an Expert” tab:  facebook.com/prius
4. Twitter feed pushing out announcements and articles: twitter.com/toyota

To learn more about how a company’s crisis response can affect its brand, check out Lynn Parker’s latest article on WomenEntrepreneur.com.

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My family and I engage in a little friendly competition when we watch big showcase events on TV…who can guess what product an ad is for first? The easiest category is always car commercials because they show, well, cars. The outside of cars driving on race courses/snowy mountains/country roads; the inside filled with smiling families/gritty workmen/gorgeous models. So we were momentarily stumped by Audi’s ‘Friendly Competition’ ad which shows people competing to do everyday things. It’s a clever ad that stands out in its category – along with the thrill of two days of mogul skiing, it has stayed with me. But, what does it say about Audi as a brand?

In the U.S. market at least, Audi’s brand position is “like BMW but not as good.” The ad turns this around to announce some industry award wins over its rival. Which leaves me wondering – what is really unique about Audi? Since its cars are similar but (now I know) slightly better, what sets it apart apparently is its personality. In the serious engineering category, Audi equals FUN serious engineering.

Will this work? The Germans aren’t exactly known for being playful. American consumers are feeling pretty beaten up though, so maybe fun expensive sedans will lift our collective mood. We’ll have to wait to see who sells more cars….and, speaking of friendly competition, who wins more medals on the slopes.

- Peggy Brown

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An epiphany is a sudden insight into reality—something you might have known all along, but simply didn’t see. It’s the big “aha!” moment clients have as a result of our work. One of our recent clients described it as, “Wow. It’s the first time I’m hearing it, but it’s like I’ve lived this all my life.”

How does the branding process uncover epiphanies?

Companies get entrenched in their thinking. They lose outsider perspective as cultural norms and groupthink take hold.

Branding, when you start with external research, brings in a new perspective about your organization’s value. There are all sorts of barriers keeping your brand from being its best: an organization’s bureaucracy, negative cultural norms, lack of focus. There’s something very elegant in how we help organizations make simple shifts to set them free.

That’s my favorite part about this job. Lifting the veil and delivering the epiphany to help organizations say, “Wow! That makes sense. A lot of sense.”

- Bianca Abate

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Speaking of resolutions, I heard a great story on NPR by Radiolab this week, which basically says, if you’re prefrontal cortex is too busy with remembering things, you’re more likely to succumb to emotional reasoning and your willpower will fade; in the experiment they did, someone memorizing seven digits was twice as likely to choose cake over fruit for a snack than someone memorizing a two-digit number.

So that’s why I make stupid food choices: I’m thinking too hard about other stuff!

So what does this mean for marketers? Since we’re all running around with too much in our brains, employ emotional reasons to buy. That’s what good branding does—hits both our reasoning and our emotions with messages that speak to us whether we’re operating from one part of our brain or the other. And good luck saying no to that cake.

-Lynn Parker

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