- Toyota replaced its sales-driven ads with a spot aiming to reassure people during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Toyota is the latest company to change its marketing in response to the coronavirus, following Coors, Hershey, and KFC, who have already hit the brakes on their ad campaigns.
- "We felt that it was time for us to reinforce the message of unity and the fact that we're here now and we're going to be here in the future," said Ed Laukes, GVP of marketing at Toyota North America.
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Toyota is altering its marketing plans, replacing sales-driven ads with a spot that's meant to reassure people during the coronavirus.
The carmaker was running ads touting offers like extended financing and zero APR on its cars across its dealerships nationwide until last week, but pulled the plug when the crisis intensified in the US and globally, Ed Laukes, general VP of marketing at Toyota North America, told Business Insider.
"We decided that it wasn't appropriate to stay out there with sales event advertising," he said. "We felt that it was time for us to reinforce the message of unity and the fact that we're here now and we're going to be here in the future."
Toyota is the latest company to change its marketing in response to the coronavirus and threatening to send the economy into a recession. Coors, Hershey, and KFC have already hit the brakes on their ad campaigns.
Toyota's new national ad campaign is centered around a 30-second commercial called "We are here for you," which will begin airing on Saturday. It is a montage of panoramic landscapes and people helping one another and ends inside a Toyota dealership. The spot was produced by the brand's agency of record Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles in less than 72 hours and uses archival footage from a range of prior campaigns.
The company is also working on a broader campaign, whose creative will be adapted regionally depending on how those areas are dealing with the coronavirus, he said. Responding quickly to the pandemic as it evolves will be the biggest challenge for brands, he said.
"The dynamics from coast to coast are so different depending on the marketplace as you can imagine," he said. "So if we continue with the lockdown within California, the messaging there is obviously going to be different maybe than what it would be in a state that doesn't have these measures."
More broadly, the coronavirus will accelerate the shift of media dollars from traditional to digital media channels, Laukes said. Marketers that don't have a digital presence right now are probably missing an opportunity, he said.
Like other automakers operating in North America, Toyota on Thursday said that it would suspend production on the continent until April 6. But Laukes said he remained optimistic.
"With the 2008 financial crisis, there seemed to be no runway to the future," he said. "But the indicators that are coming out of Asia right now appear to be be positive, and so we do have what appears to be a way to the future here."
