This week I discovered one of the best uses of Facebook for a marketing cause. Well, it’s more of an anti-marketing cause, I suppose. It’s a group called Stop Playing Toyota’s “Saved By Zero” Commercial, and it is the center of an interesting battle in the front lines of new marketing.
I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t recognize this commercial, but just in case you have effectively skipped all TV ad pods in the past three months, this story is about how Toyota is running a TV ad to promote a no-interest offer on select vehicles. In order to effectively pry this message into our brains, Toyota has licensed the new wave classic “Saved By Zero” by the Fixx, and is airing the ad ceaselessly (see here if you must). The ads are running especially during live NFL and NCAA football games, which is the last refuge of non-ad-skipped media in many of our households.
This week Advertising Age put the spotlight on this TV commercial, along with a handful of others that seem to have passed the point of frequency nausea. Other examples include DirecTV’s play on the classic movie Vacation with Christie Brinkley, and Denis Leary as the new voice of Ford trucks. There was some interesting information that suggests we are at some kind of tipping point:
- Repeating ads suggest that fewer companies are investing in TV commercial production and media buys.
- These repeating ads might further spur consumers to purchase DVRs, already in place in 26% of households, or be the impetus for existing DVR owners to finally adopt the ad-skipping habit.
- Because audiences are so fragmented, the same ad must be shown more often to achieve Reach goals.
- Falling ratings mean that networks have to air even more ads for free—a term called “make goods.”
- Consumers have grown much more sensitive to commercial repeat and are reaching the point of negative returns, called “wear out,” more rapidly. Wear out now happens after eight showings today, versus after 15 to 20 showings only 10 years ago (per Kate Sirkin, Exec VP at Starcom MediaVest).
It is interesting to analyze the comments by Wade Hoyt, a Toyota representative, when questioned as part of the Advertising Age article. He admits that the company “saturated the airwaves” purposely, because “there were all these media reports that credit was not available, and we felt it was keeping some shoppers away from dealers, so we wanted to have a dramatic program that reinforced the fact that we still had credit available.” So, in a way, I guess you could say Toyota was doing us a public service… Marketing with Meaning, eh?
But what about the collateral damage from this deliberate carpet bombing of our living rooms? I wonder if Toyota is calculating the number of people who now have a (growing) negative impression of its brand. I suppose a relative handful of people who were worried about credit availability might now go to a dealership. But I’d wager that a vast majority of us begin to form a negative perception of the Toyota brand, which grows with each repetition of “Saavvveed byyy zeerrrooo.” Toyota is not only effectively spamming us endlessly, but it is hammering home a promotional message that makes the brand seem just like all of the other desperate car companies in the market. It’s a page right out of the Big 3 owner’s manual.
And it doesn’t take much for consumers to band together to vent their frustration and protest the brand’s actions. The Facebook protest group above has more than 9,000 members and growing. Interestingly, it took far less than this number of Motrin Moms to cause J&J to pull down the brand’s website because of a Twitter backlash. How many more Facebook protesters or YouTube parodies until Toyota pays attention?
There have been annoying ads in the past, many with more airtime than Toyota’s. But today’s empowered consumer has a shorter fuse and more powerful voice, and in these “challenging times,” they hold more purchase power than ever.
Sure the ad is annoying, but what’s the point of boycotting Toyota? They have done nothing immoral, illegal, or unethical. Perhaps not very creative. Even grating on the nerves, probably.
But a negative impression of the brand? Really? Was Wendy’s hurt by those “Where’s the Beef” ads that aired incessantly in the 1980’s? Did Joe Isuzu kill that car brand?
Heck, if every ad that some group of people found annoying was taken off the air, there would be no ads on TV. Some would like that, but it would certainly make running a TV network a heck of a lot more challenging.
Good points, Chip, thanks for weighing in.
First, I’d say that I’m certainly not calling for a boycott and the Facebook group isn’t either. As consumers and (obviously) part of Toyota’s target audience we are asking the company to take down an ad that annoys the hell out of us.
As a marketing guy, my POV is that Toyota is risking a decline in its equity, which in turn will hurt its sales in both the short and long term. This happens often in marketing; the need for immediate results can lead to decisions that drive the short-term while killing the long term.
Regarding Joe Isuzu, I found at least one source that shows that while the commercials won awards, car sales actually fell during the campaign. An attempt to resurrect him a few years ago was a complete failure. The brand has about zero equity today, and announced that it will leave the U.S. passenger car market completely by the end of 2009 after selling only 7,098 cars in 2007. Can you imagine a more complete and total marketing failure?
http://tinyurl.com/6b54yc
While I’m not sure what will happen to TV network programs in the post-interruption advertising age, I am certain that telling people “watch commercials or this free TV will go away” isn’t going to work. As soon as the industry accepts this fact, it might work harder on inventing solutions that we all find more acceptable.
Does Toyota measure the effect of these ads on consumers attitudes toward the brand and some kind of intention to purchase thru marketing research? If they do, they would certainly be able to determine what effect the ads are having. If not, why not? The cost of the MR pales in comparison to the cost of creating and airing the ads.
I wish I knew what Toyota was using to test its equity, Chris. At least the Saved By Zero campaign will be easy to look back on and judge since it created so much “noise” in the market.
[...] * PART 1: 50 Youth Marketing Trends for 2009 (Slideshare) * Customer managed experience: Facebook lets you vote on ads (Customer Experience Crossroads) * Inventory Up & Costs Down–Are Mobile Ads Worth it? (Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim) * Advertising Creep Update (Animalnewyork.com) * Only 16% of Students Read Marketing Email (Marketing Charts) * Diesel kids enjoy a mind-blowing adventure (Adfreak) * They care sometimes (180360720) * Facebook Using Game Design to Drive New User Engagement (Inside Facebook) * A new low in Twitter spam (The Equity Kicker) * Death By Zero (Marketingwithmeaning.com) [...]
Yesterday I was re-reading Jon Steel’s “Truth, Lies and Advertising” and came upon his story of doing ads for the Northern California Honda Dealers. Here’s a great quote, showing how these annoying promotional commercials can destroy equity (from page 116):
“It’s dumb having [an] intelligent, stylish commercial for Honda in one break, and then in the next, 30 seconds of car salesman hell, also apparently from Honda. All the good work done by the first ad would be undone by the second.”
[...] low in Twitter spam (The Equity Kicker) * Marketing with Meaning » Blog Archive » Death By Zero (Marketingwithmeaning) * Web Video Watchers Have Short Attention Spans (Marketing Pilgrim) * Ad Nauseam: Repetition of TV [...]
[...] Spend — Nothing (Advertising Age) * Marketing with Meaning » Blog Archive » Death By Zero (marketingwithmeaning) * Ad Nauseam: Repetition of TV Spots Risks Driving Consumers Away (Advertising Age) * Consumers [...]
[...] article in AdAge and blog post on Marketing with Meaning explore how repetition of TV ads are leading to negative shares in the [...]