Toyota a perfect case study in poor crisis management

True, it bit the bullet quickly and recalled cars and halted production lines.

Those things are necessary, but they are not sufficient.

Far more serious than the financial cost is the emotional cost suffered by the brand.

Toyota’s brand promise was simple: quality and reliability, coupled with an affordable price.

It has been true to that promise for decades, and has used it to drive its phenomenal rise to becoming the world’s number one automaker.

But now that promise lies in tatters, and Toyota is thus far failing a vital test: message management.

Its chief executive, Akio Toyoda, has been conspicuously absent, leaving it to underlings to pass on the bad news.

Serious job

The company has never come clean and revealed the full extent of the damage, instead allowing bad news to build up.

Those are real no-nos, and can partly be explained by a very Japanese reticence to air bad news in public, instead getting on with the more serious job of putting the problem right.

I’m afraid that just doesn’t fly these days. Managing your brand and your message is as important as managing your production lines.

I have little doubt Toyota will weather this storm, but it has things to learn about brand promise.

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