Toyota is Fatally Reliable

Toyota has been gaining infamy lately with their sticking accelerator that has resulted in 19 fatalities in the past decade. The main defect has been with a down curved accelerator which allows the floor mat to be pushed on top of the accelerator locking the pedal in the downward position. This defect has resulted in over 3.8 million recalls. Another defect has arisen with the new 2010 Prius, it's braking software has a glitch preventing its brakes from engaging immediately. This additional defect will result in an estimated 8 million recalls of the Prius world-wide.

The Toyota ad seemed to use more striking visual elements to appeal to the audience then rhetoric. It starts with nostalgic piano music and a vintage black and white photo of several dealerships. It begins by stating "For over 50 years, providing you with safe, reliable, high quality vehicles has been our first priority." This one sentence effectively acknowledges Toyotas strengths and covers some of it's weaknesses. The price of a Toyota is considerably higher then other car manufacturers which must carry a justifiebly reason for paying this premium. Secondly, it is an imported car preventing it from being considered a domestic all American car. This issue has become increasingly relevant in the consumers mind due to the recession. After all, the auto bail out has made all American tax payers financially vested in the success of GM and Ford. It adresses this deficiency again shortly after. First it acknowledges it's recent decline in quality, it then says "That's why 172,000 Toyota and dealership employees are working around the clock". While it says this it shows various American people of both genders of varying race carrying out different jobs and maintenence to vehicles. This would allude to the fact that these "172,000 employees" are American but this is not true, Toyota employs roughly 36,000 employees in America. The bulk of Toyota workers are employed in Japan and yet they don't show a single clip of a Japanese factory with all Japanese workers.

The final statement in the video is "We are working around the clock to ensure we build vehicles of the highest quality (pause) to restore your faith (pause) in our company". This deliberate pacing helps to build a dramatic affect and keeps the viewer engaged. The latter half of the sentence might also carry subconcious religious conotations. This might seem to be consipiratorial to suspect such a thing but with the intensive amount of psychological research and technology applied to marketing these days, I wouldn't rule it out.