'Ad Age' Marketer of the Year: Toyota

日本ではあまり見えてなかったかも。。。

The margin in July was slim, only 826 units. But the Toyota brand had
its best month ever, and Lexus its best July. Ford Motor sales dropped
34% to 241,339 units from July 2005, when it had employee deals for
all. In September, Toyota Motor's sales of 222,950 were 25% higher than
its September 2005 sales, lifting the entire industry to a combined
gain of 1.9%. Without Toyota Motor, the industry would have posted a
1.7% decline, Automotive News reported.

On the product side, Toyota made lemonade out of a lemon market in
2006. While rivals were slumping under the weight of soaring gas prices
and big-truck-laden lineups, Toyota was expanding its hybrid offerings
from the Prius up through the Lexus RX 400h, and launching the
gas-sipping Toyota Yaris subcompact.

Who ever would have imagined the automaker would approve a TV
commercial that appears to show a naked owner? That's what happened
this year for the Toyota Corolla (private parts were blurred in the
spot from Saatchi & Saatchi). The spot carries the "Moving forward"
tag. Indeed.

And that means significant activity beyond the $485.8 million in
measured media spent in first-half 2006 by Toyota Division, the No. 6
overall U.S. brand. Toyota and sibling Lexus in 2006 dramatically
increased their use of events. The company says it has increased
funding for its dealers so they, too, can hold owner events.

The launch also marked Toyota's entry into video gaming, with Yaris and
Microsoft's Xbox 360 teaming up for the first driving game for Xbox
Live Arcade. Yaris had a heavy presence at the E3 video-game convention
in Los Angeles.

Mr. Lentz is suited to taking Toyota Motor Sales USA in new directions
for marketing. As VP, he oversaw and launched Scion, and says his other
brands are learning from Scion. He calls it the automaker's "laboratory
for experimentation." He says the cross-pollination is also aided by
the shuffling or promoting of marketing people from brand to brand.
(Historically, executives were moved out of marketing and succeeded by
insiders who didn't come up in marketing).

Scion is on pace to sell 21,000 more than the 156,000 units it sold in 2005.