Case Study: Can Toyota maintain its green brand status online?

admin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:18:31 +0000

Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive Community site is one of several digital initiatives that the company has pursued to establish itself as a green automotive brand online.

Have you played the automaker brand association game? Someone says the name of a manufacturer and you respond with the one word that is most closely identified with it. Volvo = Safety. BMW = Performance. And Toyota? Easy. Quality, right? Actually, more car owners associate it with Green.

While it helps that Toyota is one of the Top 10 Green Brands, online consumer perception has been shaped by the automaker’s dedicated focus to aligning its brand with their needs.

The automaker has added a hybrid filter to its online showroom, created a site about its Hybrid Synergy Drive technology and a community site that lets Toyota hybrid owners create a profile based on their reasons for purchasing their vehicle.

Even consumers who aren’t currently in market, but interested in where Toyota stands on green issues, need go no further than the company’s Open Road blog, where “Being Green” is listed as the first category.

That same blog has been employed by the automaker in recent months to address criticism from environmental advocacy groups that it is “two-faced on fuel economy.”

Perhaps due to this criticism from the environmental community, Toyota has made a number of online and offline moves recently in support of conservation efforts.

While these efforts are laudable, full-line brands like Toyota need to maintain alignment between their green branding efforts and promoting products that are not as eco-friendly.

Headlight: The Digital Automotive Blog» green brands

Case Study: Can Toyota maintain its green brand status online?

Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive Community site is one of several digital initiatives that the company has pursued to establish itself as a green automotive brand online.

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