In 2010, Toyota showed that loyalty can go a long way, and can even make people forget about a tumultuous year. With their “Somos Muchos” campaign, Toyota turned to one of their largest customer bases and used them to shed much needed positive light on their name. By issuing small bumper stickers to the overwhelmingly supportive hispanic community, Toyota was able to boost their popularity with customers across the country

Toyota had a rough 2010. The problem began when there were incidents of deadly accidents due to a malfunction in the car’s programming. Evidence of these issues trace back to 2009, which might make people wonder why the problem wasn’t addressed sooner. After an initial investigation, the culprit seemed to be an issue with the floor mats in the cars. Originally, the thought was that the acceleration pedals were getting stuck on the mats and brought the driver up to incredibly high speeds. This, of course, could have been deadly, so Toyota put out a statement saying that the issue lied in the mats and that Toyota owners should put the mats in their trunk to prevent any further problems. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the true root of the problem. As it turned out, the car models had a “sticky” pedal that could possibly get stuck while driving, so cars were brought back to get new and shorter gas pedals that wouldn’t get stuck in the car’s mats either. Unfortunately, this did not solve Toyota’s problem. These issues resulted in a deadly string of crashes that forced the company to recall roughly seven million models. Toyota was also forced to suspend the sales of eight of their best selling models. These recalls lost the company upwards of $54 million dollars a day, and the view of the company was unfavorable in the eyes of the general product. In response, Toyota called upon their best customers by launching the “Somos Muchos” campaign. By releasing hundreds of thousands of bumper stickers that paid homage to Hispanic countries, the Latino community was able to bring a light to a company that very much needed it.

 

With their target audience in place, Toyota had one goal: to make themselves look better after the troublesome year they had just experienced. To do this, they took advantage of the pride that the hispanic communities’ have of their home countries. By releasing bumper stickers that paid homage to every possible nationality that is represented in the community, they did just that. The stickers did not look at all like what they really were: ads. Instead, the stickers had a simple message on them. The all black sticker had one sentence in bold letters that read “Somos Muchos (insert country of birth).” Underneath, a small red blurb featured the statement “Somos Muchos Toyota.” This was an attempt to persuade the target audience that their community and Toyota were family, and that Toyota was not just using them as a mobile billboard. Another important aspect that played into the campaign’s success was Toyota’s use of the hispanic communities’ activeness on social media. The FaceBook page the company made dedicated to hispanic Toyota drivers quickly garnered attention, with the page quickly racking up 10,000+ “likes.” According to Pew Research Center, roughly 40% of hispanic adults said they used at least one social media site, and this was evident with the overwhelming support the FaceBook page received when it was created. 

 

With the goals set, Toyota put the plan into action. They began distributing the bumper stickers across the country later in 2010, and it was an immediate success. The company distributed roughly 380,000 stickers, and the support from across the country came rolling in. In response to the campaign, the favorable opinion of the company shot up 13%, and purchase consideration went up by 5%. The stickers became a part of pop-culture thanks to the overwhelming success. The stickers were in such high demand that even some Toyota owners in Canada wanted them. People were even puting the decals on non-Toyota cars just to be closer to their heritage. The impact of the campaign is still felt today, with Toyota remaining as the best selling car brand amongst hispanics in the United States, with 19.5% of the company’s market share being controlled by the community. According to Toyota, it was the most successful campaign the company had ever run. To this day, Toyota continues to market campaigns towards the hispanic community, due to their loyalty to the brand.