Jay Leno quipped, “Things are not looking good for Toyota. In fact, today, two crash test dummies refused to get in [...]]]> Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood sent Toyota stock into a nosedive two years ago when he told a congressional House Appropriations subcommittee, “My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it.”

Jay Leno quipped, “Things are not looking good for Toyota. In fact, today, two crash test dummies refused to get in the car.”

And of course, experts lined up to predict doom for the Toyota brand. On expert told CBS Co-Anchor Harry Smith, “We’ll be seeing for at least a decade, maybe two, that there will be major problems with the Toyota brand.”

Fast-forward just two years, not ten or twenty: The Toyota brand is definitely back. After a disastrous year of sinking sales, expensive recalls, congressional hearings and a seemingly endless public relations meltdown, Toyota’s reputation remains intact and sales are soaring.

As a brand consultant who works with various automotive brands (though not Toyota), I have been following this story closely over the last year. Here are highlights from over 40 parking lot interviews from New York to Florida of drivers and their opinions about Toyota:

Confounding comedians and critics, Toyota has become a textbook example of how a brand can bounce back. As of February, 2012, Toyota’s market share had rebounded to 13.8% of the market, despite continuing supply problems due to last year’s tsunami. Toyota’s pre-recall market share was 14.7% in January, 2010, according to Edmunds.com. According to the just-released Consumer Reports 2012 Car-Brand Perception Survey, Toyota still holds on to the #1 spot and Lexus remains in the top ten.

Part of Toyota’s recovery is due to Toyota being cleared of accusations that electrical and engine glitches caused deadly, uncontrolled acceleration. A lengthy joint investigation by NASA and the Department of Transportation found that most Toyota and Lexus crashes were due to “pedal misapplication,” that is drivers stepped on the gas instead of the brakes. A decidedly secondary cause was floor mat interference with brake pedals. The rocket scientists at NASA and engineers at the DOT found no electronic or engine failures of any kind.

Toyota’s targeted and effective communications with consumers have also helped the brand bounce back. The company’s advertising, public relations, and digital communications have been direct, honest and voluminous. Moreover, Toyota’s use of social media show that they “get it,” engaging people in true, human, back and forth conversation. At the grass roots level, dealers have earned high marks in communicating with customers affected by the recall and performing recall services promptly.

But by far the most credit for Toyota’s recovery is due to decades of delivering on its brand promise of durable, affordable high quality cars. As part of my work helping brands understand their consumers, I frequently turn on the video camera and conduct on-the-street interviews. I talked to drivers in a series of video interviews during the height of the recall crisis in back February 2010. In light of Toyota’s fast rebound, I was curious to hit the parking lots again. I interviewed dozens of drivers in Florida and New York to find out their opinion of Toyota and their reaction to the recalls.

There is still some left over recall anxiety. One young mom said, “I love the Land Cruiser. It is probably my favorite. But we actually just bought a Ford Flex. My husband does all the new car research and the recalls were something he mentioned as being a factor.”

More often people were philosophical. One woman said, “Technically, the defect didn’t cause the deaths and we are beginning to find out that a lot of those deaths were caused by driver error.” Another young man said, “Lots of cars are recalled. It is not just Toyota.”

The recalls don’t appear to have much negative impact. “I just bought a 2010 Toyota Venza,” said a dad I interviewed. “It’s been a great car. It’s brand new, put out after the recall. The recalls did not affect my decision at all. I thought they (Toyota) stepped up and took care of the cars the way they should have.”

In fact, excellent service at the dealer level plays a big role in the strength of the Toyota brand. One woman I talked two pushed back her sunglasses and enthused, “I love my car! I have no problem with Toyota at all.” She was directly affected by the recalls, “I had to take it back to the dealer. They were very cooperative and I was very happy. I got in and out real fast.”

And she wasn’t the only person to use the word “love.” That level of passion came through with surprising frequency when Toyota owners talked about their cars. One sprightly grandmother said: “I love Toyota. I happen to own one. It’s a beautiful little car.”

When companies find their brand in a crisis, they face three potential outcomes. First, their brand can suffer permanent damage. The only way to recover shareholder value is to sell it off or merge it with another. Second, the brand can soldier on, nursing its wounds for many years, waiting for consumers to slowly forget its woes. In the rarest of cases is what has happened to Toyota. The brand made a quick recovery because of the many years invested in keeping its brand promise, combined with effective communication, and the fact that Toyota was absolved of suspected engineering problems. It was the slowly built resiliency of the Toyota brand that made its fast rebound possible. Toyota teaches us that winning isn’t an event; it is a process of consistency and endurance.

Other quick tips:

1) Be clear. If it makes people stop and wonder, it’s a mistake.

2) [...]]]> Mashable has an interesting take on the do’s and don’ts of creative job titles quoting Merriam Associates. Your job title is part of your personal brand so make sure it says the right things about you. Here’s the advice on Mashable.

Other quick tips:

1) Be clear. If it makes people stop and wonder, it’s a mistake.

2) Job titles are not the place to convey personality. More often than not, that corporate personality does not fit the person carrying the business card.  It’s disconcerting to get a business card that calls someone a “rock star” when they are over weight, middle aged and quite shy.

3) Don’t over-promise or promise something you really don’t want. You can’t have a “guru” answer “I don’t know; I’ll get back to you.” As a client, do you want a “ninja” pressuring you to buy?

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spawned a brand:  the “Occupy” brand. Since the start of demonstrations a month ago, we’ve seen “Occupy Times Square,” “Occupy Atlanta,” and “Occupy San Francisco” spring up.  We also have “OccupyTogether.org” as an unofficial hub for other “Occupy” activities, and “OccupyEverything.org” [...]]]>

Been There. Done That. Bought The T Shirt.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has spawned a brand:  the “Occupy” brand. Since the start of demonstrations a month ago, we’ve seen “Occupy Times Square,” “Occupy Atlanta,” and “Occupy San Francisco” spring up.  We also have “OccupyTogether.org” as an unofficial hub for other “Occupy” activities, and “OccupyEverything.org” with its “militant research…and mediatic (sic) intervention.”

Key to the “Occupy” brand is a general anti-ness from anti-capitalism to anti-fur. As the movement spreads, it adds new attributes such as “Occupy Tokyo’s” anti-nuke position and “Occupy Rome’s”  violence. “Occupy Sydney” didn’t take off, as one participant regretted, ““we don’t have the depth of crisis here in Australia.” You have to be anti-something to really get the “Occupy” brand, and the folks in Sydney don’t appear to be angry enough about anything.

But could the “Occupy” brand stretch too far? It embraces all sorts of issues, but can it embrace outright hypocrisy? Can anti-capitalists get away with trying to capitalize on the movement by selling t-shirts and pimping for donations? Can the bailout president and Wall Street funded Barak Obama successfully “Occupy Populism” and “acknowledge the frustration that he himself shares” with the protesters as ABC reports?

It’s doubtful the “Occupy” brand can stretch that much.

UPDATE: Well that didn’t take long. On October 18, Robert Maresca of West Islip, New York filed a claim with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office for “Occupy Wall Street.” Someone else had already filed for “We Are the 99%.” The hypocrisy of capitalizing on anti-capitalism continues…

UPDATE:  Found on Jihad Jihad Watch. Seems bin Laden himself was worried about his brand. In documents recovered by the SEALs, he wrote that he was [...]]]> Please visit Forbes.com for our article on the demise of the Al Qaeda brand following last week’s drone attack on Al Qaeda’s most visible marketing executive and Inspire magazine publisher/editor.

UPDATE:  Found on Jihad Jihad Watch. Seems bin Laden himself was worried about his brand. In documents recovered by the SEALs, he wrote that he was considering changing the name of al Qaeda to “Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad,” meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group, or “Jama’at I’Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida,” meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group. Well, if drone attacks hadn’t killed the al Qaeda brand, it seemed like top management was poised to muck it up on their own.

The Al Qaeda flag features the Shahadah, the Muslim declaration of belief “There [...]]]> Most people don’t think of Al Qaeda and marketing in the same sentence. But marketing is important to Al Qaeda and so is the strength of its brand. It is the key to raising money, recruiting jihadis and motivating them to attack.

The Al Qaeda flag features the Shahadah, the Muslim declaration of belief “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.”

Weak Al Qaeda Brand Image
The Al Qaeda brand is in trouble. Like many brands, it got its name by accident. The name means “The Base,” referring to the network of mujahedeen training camps founded during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It doesn’t really have a logo ( but it does have a flag). At least it avoids the terrorist visual clichés of crossed swords and crossed guns.

Al Qaeda Brand Built on Personalities
Al Qaeda’s brand largely rests on cult of personality—think Martha Stewart, Oprah or Donald Trump. That’s why Osama bin Laden dyed his beard for his video appearances and why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed draped himself in white robes for the Red Cross photographers on Guantanomo. With the death and capture of its iconic leaders, the engine of the Al Qaeda brand is broken. Chief Marketing Officers in American firms have notoriously short tenures. So do CMO’s of Al Qaeda. Getting fired from Al Qaeda, however, tends to take the form of a drone attack.

Failing Brand Experience
In addition to outsize personalities, the Al Qaeda brand was built on headline-grabbing acts of terror. A decade has passed without what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed called “spectaculars.” It’s been years since Al Qaeda has been able to make splashy attacks like the USS Cole, the Bali bombing or the 9/11 “Planes Operation.” Thwarted attempts, like the Underpants Bomber or Times Square bomb fizzle, show smaller ambitions and a “brand experience” linked to failure after failure.

Splintering Franchise
Like many once iconic brands, Al Qaeda has splintered. Brand experts point out the damage to brand power when it “stretches” too much. The most effective brands are singular and iconic. Al Qaeda is fading due to the proliferation of “flavors” and associated “subbrands.” Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula lacks the panache of plain old Al Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed lacks name recognition.

Al Qaeda Brand and a Reduced Strategy
Ten years ago, Al Qaeda was more like Procter & Gamble with central brand management and control. Nowadays, it is more like Amway. Al Qaeda declined from peerless icon to a collection of franchises to local to being a coach on the sidelines, encouraging and assisting personal initiative. Pursuing a “strategy of a thousand cuts” or “one man, one bomb,” Al Qaeda supplies the fatwa, the bomb recipes, the strategic suggestions and sits back. Current Al Qaeda propaganda minister (CMO) Adam Gadahn asks, “So what are you waiting for?” Thankfully, making a bomb from a recipe in Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine is more difficult than duplicating Martha Stewart’s cake fondant. It always looks so do-able on the page and comes out like crap in your own kitchen.

As a brand that inspired fear, attracted investment and inspired jihadis, the Al Qaeda brand has lost its power.

UPDATE: 9/30/2011: The Al Qaeda brand has sustained another blow with the death of its chief English speaking propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and the editor of Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine Samir Khan. al-Awlaki wasn’t considered a top leader in Al Qaeda, but he was an important face of the brand in the U.S. due to his role in assisting some of the 9/11 hijackers, his inspiration of the Ft. Hood shooter Nidal  Malik Hasan, and his involvement with the Underwear Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. His role in Inspire magazine and his English language threat videos further raised his personal profile and awareness of Al Qaeda. We had talked about how many Al Qeada brand leaders have been “fired” by drone attacks–for the marketing leaders that remain, it is a question of who is next on the list and when. See my article on Forbes.com

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Bin Laden Brand Lives and Profits (But Not as He Intended)