Free Advertising for Toyota
by Adrian Hanft, (3 comments)
When a company has a high quality product, the loyalty of their customers is often more valuable than any advertisement they could buy. The catch phrase lately has been “customer evangelist.” I would probably come pretty close to fitting that description when it comes to Toyota, and I thought I would share a few highlights from my day at the Toyota dealership last week.
1. Negative Equity
I was helped by Bob Otis who broke the car salesman stereotype with low pressure and by being very helpful. The main reason I will always buy Toyota is because they hold their value. I got almost what I owed on the trade-in of my Tacoma. Bob told me that when people trade in their Kia’s they can owe over $8000. I thought that was pretty amazing if it is true. How can a vehicle lose that much value just by driving it off the lot?
2. Scion
While I was waiting for them to do whatever they do in the back, I checked out the Scion. According to Bob, the Scion is trying to appeal to a young “hip” crowd. I guess that explains why Toyota paid people to put Scion ads on their foreheads a while back. The other thing that was interesting is that the Scions are sold with “pure pricing.” That means that the price in not negotiable and their is no haggleing. You can probably get a price on your customized Scion on the website, which is pretty nice.
3. Free Ads on My Car
Whether you like it or not, when you buy a car, you are going to advertise for the dealership. What I mean is they usually put a sticker from the dealership on the back of your car. I finally took the Stevenson Toyota license plate covers off our other vehicle. Shouldn’t you get reimbursed in some way for driving around with these ads on your car? They paid the kids to put the ads on their foreheads. Isn’t this basically the same thing? The other advertisement they stuck me with was a couple of floor mats with the dealership’s name on them. I figure I will keep them through the winter, so they won that one.
4. Prius
I was hoping I could test drive a Prius while I was there, but due to the unbelievable demand for these vehicles they didn’t have any. Bob told me that they had 2 of them last week. In an interesting marketing move, he told me they don’t sell these vehicles on their website. He said that they would rather sell them off their lot. With the popularity and scarcity of the Prius, I can definitely see the value of having one of them parked on their lot. The Prius has to be one of the most fascinating pop products out there right now.
So that was my day at the dealership. I ended up with a Tercel for my trade, and I am pretty happy with it. I miss my truck, but at least I still have a Toyota.
Comments (3)
Allen said:
If I had a slogan and have an Idea for a toyota comercial who would I contact to see if they would be interested in buying my slogan and want to hear about the comercial idea?
Posted on July 31, 2006
meysam mortezaei said:
I have some design for bdy of toyota haw can I send it you
Posted on September 27, 2007
Damjan Zabovnik said:
Hello!
I am an inventor, for 5 years I am active in human powered vehicle movement. I am the fastest European, in 200 meter flying start and 1-hour disciplines. I am very interested in electric vehicles. A lot of people travel alone in their cars nowadays. They go to the job and back, with only a little of baggage. That’s why I’d like to develop a very light and extremely streamlined electric vehicle for one person, that is very efficient, based on my experiences from Human Powered Vehicles. If human powered vehicle can cruise at speed about 90 km/h (56 mph), using only 230-300 Watts of power, then useful electric vehicle would use 500-1000 Watts of power for the same speed. Range could be very good (about 400 miles per charge). If you compare costs for such a transportation and nowadays cars, my EV would be 100 times cheaper, equivalent to 3000 miles per American gallon of gasoline. People would love that vehicle just because they would save so much money on transportation. I engineered it and solved the most of the problems that appeared, to make it user friendly. It is about shock absorbers, engine mount, motor controller, batteries location, door, mirrors, lights, windscreen wipers, steering, traffic usage, transmission, doing uphill, ventilation, etc.
Please give me a chance to introduce to you my vision of this opportunity. If you are interested, we gather and discuss. I’d like to cooperate with you to make first prototype and eventually offer it to the market. Please let me know if you want my CV and a picture of that vehicle.
Best regards, Damjan
Posted on October 16, 2007