Toyota is just the latest example of how a brand's promise, cultivated over years, can careen out of control and be nullified by consumer doubt.

The issue has less to do with sudden acceleration and sticky pedals than with the company's delayed and studied response to its problem, which from the start seems to have been driven more by a concern over its image and profits than by driver safety.

A company's behavior must live up to the promise inherent in its brand. Toyota's promise of reliability, safety and customer focus has been broken at every turn.

First, it minimized the problems that were being reported until it could do so no longer.  Then it recalled its vehicles but with an uncertain result. At the same time, it spent millions of dollars airing self-serving TV commercials touting the safety of their vehicles, even while more incidents were occurring!

Their best course would have been to pull all advertising until they fully identified the problems and their solutions.  Their messages reflected only wishful thinking, not customer experience.  In advertising, hope is not a strategy.

This Toyota teaching moment once again drives home the importance of knowing your brand's promise and living by it each and every day.  It is what makes you unique, valued and trusted. 

As we like to say, "Know your brand promise.  Communicate it.  Deliver it!"

Bill Carlos