Research Question:
Have the recent recalls effected Toyotas brand image?
Product Description: We, as a group, chose this topic because Toyotas main slogan consists of ‘The Best Built Cars in The World’ despite having numerous recalls over the past number of years. This really appealed to us and we wanted to see how the recalls have effected potential customers of Toyota cars in Ireland. Toyota spent 33 days as the no.1 news story worldwide (24/7 wall st). We hope to learn if this negative news coverage has effected Toyotas market share in Ireland, along with Ireland’s overall view of Toyota as a brand. With this, we want to research new cars sales in Ireland over the past number of years and in particular around the months of February and March 2009 when the recalls for Toyotas reached their peak (Cole). With the large number of recalls, we also want to investigate if Toyota have changed their production practices and quality checks to prevent these large scale recalls from happening once again. Traditionally, this company had an essence of quality about its brand (Toyota-global.com) in Ireland and we want to see what Toyota Ireland is currently doing to reassure their target market that the recalls were a mere blip in the company’s overall history and Toyota are still reliable as they ever were. Along with new car sales, we also want to research the second-hand car market in Ireland and see what is Toyota’s market place is there. We felt this is important because a significant number of cars are bought and sold in the second hand car market, and we thought it would help in answering our research question. Toyotas brand image is very important to itself as it effects what comes to a potential customers mind when they see the Toyota logo or hear the brand name. Do these people automatically think ‘recall’ or ‘quality’? This image might effect a person’s decision on whether to buy a Toyota or not. The two potential views contrast each other and we are very interested in finding out what does automatically come to the mind of Toyotas target market when they think of the brand. We also want to research has customer loyalty been effected by the recalls, and were existing Toyota customers driven away to another rival car brand because they felt the cars build quality was declining.
Methodology: In order to answer the above questions, we intend on surveying Toyotas target market and get first-hand information of what these people really think of the brand. We hope to visit a local Toyota garage and ask members of staff their view on the recalls and see what they are doing to market and sell Toyotas to people every day. We will send e-mails to donedeal.ie and other second hand car sites to try and get information on the second-hand car market and Toyotas place in it. We will use some reliable second hand information to help us understand what Toyota has been through and how what they are doing to reclaim their position in the market.
References: Some of the references we have found so far include:
Liker, Jeffery K. (2011) ‘Toyota under Fire’ Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Cole, Robert E. (2011) ‘What really happened to Toyota? Available: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/what-really-happened-to-toyota/
Hammond, Robert G (2013) ‘Sudden Unintended Used-Price Deceleration? The 2009-2010 Toyota Recalls’ Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 22 (1) 78-100
Fan, David, Geddes, David & Flory, Felix (2013)’ The Toyota recall crisis: media Impact on Toyotas corporate Brand Reputation’ Corporate Reputation Review, 16(2), 99-117
Reuters, ‘Toyota recalling 20,000 late model vehicle’s on potential fuel leak’ 2014 (online) [cited 24 September 2014]
Forbes, ‘Takata Air Bag Recall Could dwarf GM and Toyota recalls’ (2014) (online)[cited 24 September 2014] na. (2014). Toyota recalls 8,500 cars in Ireland as part of 6.4m recall, Available: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/manufacturing/toyota-recalls-8-500-cars-in-ireland-as-part-of-6-4m-recall-1.1755484 Last accessed 24 Sept 2014 na. (2014). National Vehicle Statistics. Available: http://www.simi.ie/Statistics/National+Vehicle+Statistics.html Last accessed 24 Sept 2014.
