Categories
Seeing the latest Toyota Tundra commercial and realizing what it really means reminds one of watching Mike Tyson fight when he was young … there is a sense of dread and inevitability about the outcome.
Having identified the next automotive frontier to conquer, Toyota has begun the process of dismantling their opponents and, in the best tradition of Sun Tzu (legendary general and author of ‘The Art of War’), they are using their own tactics against them. . In the long run, it may not matter that American automakers have been making big trucks for decades and still do.
Because ‘The Great American Truck’ has long been marketed as a male icon, almost every previous ad campaign has been an effort to outwit the next guy. There is a rich tradition in the commercial truck world for the harshest, most masculine voice to speak about the product in an inspiring way, but Toyota has dangerously upped the ante with this latest Tundra voice actor … this guy makes a Sam Elliott sounds like a giggling schoolgirl.
As soon as American advertisers realized that people knew that Toyota was building many of its cars and trucks here in the United States, they switched to an old-time ‘History of America’ tone. You know … “We’ve been building these since they flew over Pearl” and things like that. But these little sideshows are really just a distraction from the real game – at some point, you’ll get back to the product: the price, the quality, the cost of operation, the depreciation rate … you know, the money.
At Toyota plants around the world, a single worker is expected to stop the assembly line if they think there is a problem or if they think there is a way to improve the process. In the United States, unions are quite effective in promoting a variety of things, but creative thinking and individual recognition are not among them. Not to say it doesn’t happen, it couldn’t happen, but it’s hard to imagine one of our guys stopping the assembly line. Well, you know, without getting hit in the face with a baseball bat.
The American automakers most directly in the firing line of the Tundra are obviously Ford and Chevy. This could actually be a good thing, because if people take the time to test all of their options, they may find (to their surprise) that there is little, if any, to choose from among the brands.
But what if we find that we can’t fight them in the quality arena? That our powers of persuasion are mitigated by superior voice actors? How soon will it be before we start thinking about the unthinkable … that awakening his former enemy from his Mothra-induced slumber could really be our last and best hope? And what message would that send to our children, when they ask, and will ask, if there was any other way we could have competed for this business? “Dad, why did we wake up the monster?”
Oh mankind!
