Toyota Places Sunday Newspaper Ad Regarding Accelerator Recall

Toyota has placed a full-page newspaper ad in about 20 major markets that says the following:

As you may have heard, in rare cases, sticking accelerator pedals have occurred in some of our vehicles. We believe we are close to announcing an effective remedy. And we’ve temporarily halted production at some of our North American plants to focus on vehicles we’ve recalled. Why have we taken this unprecedented action? Because it’s the right thing to do for our customers.

To find out if your Toyota is affected and to get the very latest information about the recall, please visit toyota.com

This ad is meant to alleviate consumer concerns and to shape the conversation around the accelerator recall issue. However, this ad falls short. Here’s why:

1. The newspaper is a dying medium. Perhaps Toyota’s older-than-average owner base reads the Sunday paper, but any newspaper editor will tell you that most people go online for their news. This ad might have reached more eyeballs if Toyota had placed it on Yahoo.com. Perhaps the Yahoo ad buy is pending…

2. The ad doesn’t say much. Most consumers know that Toyota has stopped producing and selling vehicles – the only newsworthy item here is that Toyota is expecting to announce a fix soon. Why buy a full page ad to re-iterate what consumers already know?

3. This ad should do more to drive people to Toyota’s recall website. The answers that consumers are seeking – what the recall is, the difference between the pedal recall and the floor mat recall, etc. – are all clearly answered on Toyota’s website (quite clearly in fact). While this newspaper ad does tell people to go to toyota.com, it’s not the focal point it should be. People go online for news, remember?

In Toyota’s defense, this is likely only the first move in a full-court media press, and to be fair there’s really no good way to handle this kind of problem. Still, a newspaper ad seems like the act of a company that doesn’t understand modern media.

The ad itself is below:

Toyota Sunday Temporary Pause Ad