“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.”

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.

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.