Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse for Toyota, on Monday a 61 year old driver in California underwent the harrowing experience of his Prius hybrid accelerating uncontrollably and nearly crashing.

According to reports, the driver called 911 and got a police officer to drive next to him, calling out instructions on the patrol car’s speaker. The Prius finally slowed down after several attempts to shut the engine off, slam the car in neutral and smash the breaks to the floor. Whew…that was close!

It is beyond ironic that this incident occurred just a few days after Toyota held a very public — and rather defensive — press conference to denounce certain media organizations for their misleading reports on Toyota’s technical recall fixes. To a degree, Toyota had a point in this instance. They criticized ABC and its correspondent Brian Ross for showing a manufactured clip of his Toyota revving out of control, when in fact the car was really standing still. Ross is infamous for making stuff up so it’s only fair that Toyota called him on it.

That said, I still believe Toyota needs to be very careful right now about going on the offensive. It makes them look like they are still trying to hide something. And, the media have already reported quite a bit of evidence that showed pretty conclusively that Toyota was trying to hide (or at least downplay) its unintended acceleration problems for some time.

Of course, the fact that a Prius suddenly accelerated out of control just a few days after Toyota’s big press event, just underscores the riskiness of Toyota’s PR strategy.

Stay tuned. This story is far from over.

Well, it is no big surprise that Toyota’s sales dropped pretty steeply in February (for Toyota a 9% fall is like going over the proverbial cliff). The company continues to battle with the flood of negative publicity about the safety of its cars and, more devastatingly, the alleged cover up by Toyota in dealing with these massive problems.

It is fascinating to see the parallel rise of GM’s and Ford’s fortunes, just as Toyota has slipped so badly. The recent sales increases of these two domestic auto makers was largely due to Toyota’s troubles. But, they are also getting their footing back as well.

Toyota is now working as hard as it apparently can to regain the trust it lost. It has been running commercials everywhere (including during the recent Olympics), and full page "letters to customers" in the major newspapers. Toyota executives continue to apologize wherever and whenever they can, and the company is touting its new commitment to safety.

Good for Toyota. These actions are the right thing to do, but long overdue.

Toyota can come back from this. A brand as strong as Toyota has a pretty deep pool of good will it can tap into to reclaim its good name. However, this entire affair once again demonstrates to companies large and small that reputations — no matter how golden — are not a static thing. They are dynamic and constantly shifting. You need to continue to enhance and protect them by doing the right thing by your customers, partners and the public overall.

Toyota’s troubles (which are by no means over) also remind us all of the old Washington, DC crisis maxim: The crisis itself is not usually the fatal event for a politician or brand. It’s the cover up.

Lesson learned. We hope.

On a recent business trip I picked up the latest Car and Driver magazine to get my monthly car guy fix. I usually don’t read the editorials in any of these car mags because they tend to say the same tedious things.Typically that includes a memoir of driving the newest Lamborghini on the Autostrada, or a rant against the US Government for this new regulation or that.

I was more bored than usual on this trip and started to read the lead editorial by Car and Driver Editor Eddie Alterman in the March issue. Lo and behold, I was amazed to read what ended up being Mr. Alterman’s master’s class write up on what it takes to be a true brand.

Alterman’s epic brand commentary focused on Lexus, the 20 year old luxury division of that little Japanese company called Toyota (which loyal readers of this blog know has become a bit of an obsession for me of late). The editorial discussed the new Lexus LFA "supercoupe," a $350K carbon fiber hunk of automotive awesomeness. Alterman drily noted that this Lexus show car looked like "somebody’s old Supra that crashed into a JC Whitney parts warehouse." Double ouch!! Mr. Toyoda (Toyota’s CEO) probably hated that put-down even worse than having to testify before Congress (well, almost).

But, what the editorial really was zeroing in on was the entire measure of what makes a great car company — and, by definition and association, a great car brand.

Alterman noted that "the real answer to the queston of Lexus’s product convictions is that it has none (ouch, again!). It’s a fine mimic, but there’s no dynamic cohesion among its cars."

I could not have said it better myself. In fact, I have been saying pretty much the same thing for the 20 years that Lexus has been selling its cars. Lexus is singularly a brand without a soul or personality. It is wildly successful because it sells what many perceive to the be pinnacle of quality and technical innovation. To me it has always just been a very expensive Toyota with a much better buying experience (more than anything, the Lexus brand is about that total ownership experience, not really the cars themselves).

Now, this is when the C&D editor really shows his brand chops. He comments: "A business, especially a luxury-car business, should stand for something more than just best practices and profit taking. A great car company needs its own animating idea, expressed through the entire product line — a spirit that holds the enterprise together. Even the BMW X6 has a little 2002 in it."

(For those non-car buffs and non-BMW enthusiasts out there, the 2002 is to BMW what the original Bug was to VW and the Model A and Mustang were to Ford — it was the car that set the template for the BMW brand all the way back in the 70s. BMW lives up to that sporty, fun, aggressively simple 2002 model even to this day.)

Alterman finally has this to say about Toyota’s hot new sports car and the company’s brand management prowess (or lack thereof). "It better stop trying to be all things to all people. It better figure out what it wants to be."

Great advice to all of us. As you figure out your brand (for your company, your organization, your service, or yourself), you need to always ask:

• What is the "animating idea" that will hold your enterprise together?
• What do you really want to stand for?

I am in total agreement with Mr. Alterman. The truly great enterprises always have a bigger purpose to them that is so much more than just making money or, heaven forbid, "maximizing shareholder value."

The great brands don’t try to be all things to all people. Strategy is about making choices, not just doing everything and hoping something works. Have you chosen what your brand promise should and will be? And then have you oriented everything in your company around that promise, and then stood by it through upturns and downturns, too?

Great advice is where you find it. From a branding perspective, you can’t do much better than Eddie Alterman’s editorial in the recent Car and Driver.

I am in New York this evening and was watching the Olympics at an Irish bar near my Midtown East hotel. On came a Toyota ad, which amazed me with its tagline:

Moving Forward

Now, I have seen that Toyota campaign tagline before. But, I never viewed it with the context that we all have now — Toyota’s massive recall and resulting crisis, all stemming from the company’s major problem with sudden unintended acceleration.

Don’t know about you, but that feels a bit too close to Toyota’s "Moving Forward" tagline.

I would either drop that tagline immediately and/or get a new one.

Just sayin’!

The news is out today that Toyota is undertaking a series of quality and safety measures to fix the systemic problems brought glaringly to light because of the company’s recent massive recall and resulting brand crisis.

As reported in Ad Age today, the steps include appointing regional quality officers, relying on an onboard "black box" to evaluate safety data in Toyota cars, and installing brake override systems (a great idea, if long overdue).

Good for Toyota. They are finally taking this crisis seriously and doing tangible things to deal with it.

The company and its brand still have a long way to go to restoring the confidence it lost because of the way the crisis was handled. But, these new moves are a step in the right direction.

It will be interesting now to see how Toyota does when it gets grilled in the upcoming Congressional hearings. As they say in DC, Toyota has a lot of "splainin’ to do."

Stay tuned. This is just getting started.

Toyota has just started running its first TV ad in the wake of its disastrous recall, unintended acceleration problem and growing brand and reputation crisis. The ad is fine, if a bit bland.

As I have been saying for the past two weeks, Toyota needs to ratchet up its emotional quotient in everything it does relative to this crisis. At fist, Toyota was perceived (rightfully so) as under-reacting to the crisis, when in fact they should be demonstrating a visible and visceral "over-reaction" to a crisis of this scope and seriousness.

That is where the passion comes in. Toyota needs to start wearing its heart on its sleeve and really show some human emotion and passion regarding how deeply it cares about the recall problems…and how it is doing everything in its power, 24/7, to ensure the safety and security of its customers (Toyota owners and stakeholders).

Toyota also needs to show a lot more humility. The new TV spot hints at that emotion, but it still is not enough, in my view. The company’s senior execs are now going through their ritual Japanese apology phase. That is all well and good, but it has a quality of being rather perfunctory rather than really sincere. Indeed, in the Japanese culture, those in charge are expected by tradition and custom to publicly apologize when their organizations screw up. They sort of have to do it, so the apologies don’t always seem terribly heart felt (at least to Western eyes).

The news in recent days has not been good regarding Toyota’s long held knowledge of its unintended acceleration problems. The story is also seeping out about Toyota’s secretive culture, which certainly contributed to its inability to effectively respond to the company’s widening safety problems and deal with them quickly and in a consumer-focused way.

The Wall Street Journal ran an eye opening front page story today on this issue. According to the article, Toyota’s secretive culture helped to exacerbate the company’s crisis and undermined their response to it. I have worked with several major Japanese companies (including one of the big three car companies…not Toyota), and the WSJ story rings true to me.

Japan’s business culture is very top down, paternalistic and rather arrogant. That would be particularly true for a leader like Toyota, which has long been known as the gold standard in pretty much everything. They don’t think they make mistakes, so are thus very slow to react to claims they have in fact done so — spectacularly so in this case. it all adds up.

To reiterate, Toyota needs to step up its move towards greater openness and transparency, admitting and dealing honestly with its mistakes, and being more humble in its approach to its customers and the public overall.

Most importantly, Toyota needs to make sure that in every move it makes from now on, they are viewed as focusing on one thing, and one thing only — protecting the safety and security of its customers.

Could it get any worse for Toyota? (The short answer is, yes, but more on that later.) Yesterday it was reported that the US government authorities are now investigating whether or not the Toyota jewel in the crown, the Prius hybrid, might have to be recalled for faulty brakes.

As they say, when it rains it’s a monsoon!

The Toyota CEO (Mr. Toyoda, grandson of the founder) held a news conference in Japan today and offered the obligatory Japanese apology. Good for him. But, his company still has a long way to go to reclaim the trust of US car buyers and other key stakeholders.

As I have been writing all week on this blog, Toyota has really mishandled this recall and unintended acceleration crisis. Let me enumerate:

• Toyota was way too slow in responding to the growing crisis and getting out there to allay the major concerns amongst customers, dealers and the public at large.
• The company’s unintended acceleration problem has actually been festering for nearly a decade now. Toyota has been trying to tamp it down and hope it goes away, but that hope was lost when four people were killed in a Lexus last August in San Diego. The cause of the crash: a stuck accelerator that made the Toyota-made car fly out of control.
• Toyota has not been communicating very much or frequently with its vehicle owners; talk about a massive crisis communications mistake.
• Toyota’s first ad campaign on the crisis (print ads that started running last Sunday the 31st) was pretty lame. The ads inexplicably focused more on the Toyota plants shutdown than on the real problems that caused the crisis in the first place.
• Toyota’s US President Jim Lentz finally did media interviews on Monday the 1st (what took him so long?), and his comments were less than confidence inspiring.
• The company is rejecting out of hand any possibilities that a serious electronic glitch could also be a cause of the unintended acceleration. The fact is, Toyota does not really know what the cause is, and that was made clear when Lentz announced Toyota’s sticky gas pedal "fix." He said that the repairs "solve the issues that we know of." Wow, that is a pretty big caveat from the Toyota chief.

Toyota needs to start telling the whole truth regarding this crisis and its causes, and they need to do it right now. Toyota’s sales numbers are dropping like a stone (they declined 16% already in Jan.). And, the authoritative Kelley Blue Book just released results of a survey that showed a sharp drop in the number of people who put Toyota on their car purchase preference list. That is a terribly ominous sign for the Toyota brand.

If Toyota does not begin acting truly in the public’s interest, their Tylenol Moment could turn into a replay of the Audi Catastrophe of the 80s.

Sorry to pile on Toyota, but the news seems to be going from bad to worse. The lead story in today’s Wall Street Journal tells the tale. It seems the US government is getting even more serious and aggressive about its response to the crisis and is pushing Toyota hard on its "fix" for the sticky accelerator problem, which can lead to deadly unintended acceleration.

And therein lies the real danger for Toyota. Would that the "only" problem for the beleaguered car company be sticky accelerator pedals and recalcitrant floor mats. Toyota announced its fix for the accelerator pedals earlier this week and will be making the repairs to the millions of affected cars in the new several weeks.

But, the government and a number of experts believe that the sticky pedals might not be the only cause of Toyota’s growing Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) problem. These  occurrences of SUA have led to numerous accidents involving Toyota vehicles and one catastrophic crash that killed four people in San Diego last summer.

If it’s true that the sticky accelerators and the floor mats are indeed not the only causes of the SUA problem, then all bets are off for Toyota. Jim Lentz, Toyota’s US President, seemed to hedge his bets during his media interviews this past Monday when he said that his company’s repairs "solve the issues that we know of."

"…that we know of." You could drive a 747 through that caveat!

Yep, there very well could be other causes to the problem. Some are pointing to an electronic glitch, but Toyota dismisses this. The truth is, no one (including Toyota) really knows for sure the full story of what is making some Toyota vehicles accelerate out of the control of their drivers. And that uncertainty is causing a lot of fear and consternation…as well as risk for everyone involved, from the vehicles owners themselves to Toyota and its dealers.

Now more than ever, Toyota needs to be even more open, transparent and fully focused on and committed to the public interest. The truth is going to come out eventually, and Toyota needs to be on the side of the angels regarding that truth (which is to say, not trying to cover it up).

No less than the "gold plated" Toyota brand hangs in the balance.

A Wall Street Journal story reported today that the Obama Administration is threatening to get tough with Toyota in the wake of the automaker’s slow reaction to the unintended acceleration problem and the resulting global recall of millions of affected Toyota vehicles.

Of course, this is a bit of an about face for the Administration. According to the Journal story, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was apparently fine earlier on with Toyota’s response to the crisis. The political tune changes as the media and public seize on the issue.

The government is also questioning quite publicly whether the gas pedal "fix" that Toyota is implementing will really be enough to solve the problem. Some are speculating that the problem is actually electronic; Toyota denies and disputes that.

This still disputed question of what is the true cause of the problem is potentially explosive and game changing (in an extraordinarily negative way) for Toyota and its dealers.

As I have said all along, Toyota has been woefully slow in responding to this massive crisis of confidence in its products, brand and safety precautions. Being deliberative is fine to a point in business, but in a major crisis like this, it is actually better to show some passion in how you react.

In fact, it’s better if you actually over-react a bit in your crisis response (show people that you REALLY care and are moving heaven and earth to fix the problem pronto!).

Here’s a famous example of this crisis communications tenet. When Princess Diana was tragically killed in the auto accident in Paris, the English people went into national, very emotional mourning. Except, that is, for the stoic, vehddy British Queen Elizabeth. The Queen, not known as a fan of Diana’s, chose to circle the family wagons and grieve privately. But, the British people interpreted that as a snub and cold reaction to the death of their beloved princess. Even though the Queen thought she was doing the right thing with her private expression of grief, she should have been more visible, passionate and open in that grieving.

The crisis management lesson: Even the perception of under-reacting to a crisis can be deadly. Toyota is learning that lesson now with its slow, underwhelming response during the first big week of the crisis. The company now has a lot of catching up to do.

Not surprisingly, the January auto sales figures came out today and Toyota showed an uncharacteristic, and surprisingly steep decrease of 16%. Ford and GM both had nice sales gains in the first month of the new year.

And the story rolls on.

Toyota’s US president and COO James Lentz finally went on the Today Show this morning to try to quell the growing concern and outright fear over Toyota’s massive vehicle recall.

As pretty much everyone knows by now, the mounting crisis grew out of Toyota’s problem with sticky accelerators that could cause, and have already caused, SUA (Sudden Unintended Acceleration).

Lentz’s appearance on Today was a smart move, but late in coming. Every day that Toyota has been silent on this unfolding crisis, the company’s famous and hard won reputation for quality, dependability and safety declined a little more. Brands are dynamic things. They can rise and fall based on how your treat and manage them.

Toyota’s big announcement today was that they had developed a "fix" for the sticky accelerators and would be shipping it to dealers as early as this week. The repair involves the inserting of a steel reinforcement bar into the pedal assembly that supposedly reduces the surface tension that can cause it to stick. The other repair that Toyota already announced was a modification to floor mats, which would prevent the pedal from getting trapped under the mat.

In his comments today, Lentz claimed that the Toyota vehicles under recall "are safe to drive, even before the repairs are made, unless drivers experience signs that the pedal has become worn or more difficult to use." Don’t know about you, but that is not exactly a vote of ringing endorsement from the Toyota president. To me, it is kind of a vague and slippery explanation.

The dirty secret here is that, according to some experts, the "fix" outlined by Toyota might not even solve the SUA problem in the long run. Toyota stated that they don’t believe that the electronics of the gas pedal operation (these "drive by wire" accelerator pedals no longer function mechanically, like the old days) have anything to do with the sticking problem. The truth is, however, that Toyota can’t really claim that with 100% certainty. They will just have to make the repairs and hope that the fix works.

Even more damning for Toyota was the front page article in today’s NY Times, reporting what other news organizations have also been saying recently, which is that Toyota had to be brought kicking and screaming into this recall and factory shut down. In fact, Toyota knew about serious problems with Sudden Unintended Acceleration in some of its models as early as 1999. Apparently, the government finally convinced (more like forced) Toyota to launch the recall to fix the problem.

Of course, Toyota finally took the step it had so long avoided because of the negative publicity over the terrible accident of a Toyota-made Lexus ES 350 sedan last August 28 near San Diego that killed four people. Prior to that crash, a panic-stricken man in the Lexus was heard on a 911 call saying that his car’s "accelerator is stuck." Then the crash happened and all four passengers in the Lexus were killed.

According to the Times piece, prior to last week’s recall announcement Toyota had already received more than 2,000 complaints of SUA and had gone through multiple government investigations since 2002.

Wow. That looks to me like a company that truly is in deep denial. Even by the standards of automobile manufacturers, who historically have never been known for their deep commitment to consumers’ safety and well being,Toyota’s head in the sand stance on this problem has been pretty breath taking in its irresponsibility.

Which leads us to today. Toyota is finally starting to react to the problem and communicate to the public. That is after keeping its customers and dealers pretty much in the dark for the past week. Before today’s appearance by President Lentz on TV and the company’s announcements, Toyota’s US management had been effectively silent on the issue. Ad Age just weighed in on the issue today, saying that the Toyota brand faced a billion-dollar battle ahead to regain its formerly gold plated reputation.

As I have stated previously, Toyota has not exactly distinguished itself so far in its handling of this major crisis. When Lentz stated in a Wall Street Journal interview that he believes the impact on Toyota sales will be "minimal," it sounded to me like a severe case of wishful thinking.

Toyota still has a long way to go to repair the reputational hit the brand has taken, and continues to take, because of this crisis. So far at least, a lot of those hits have been self inflicted.