Okay, so I was watching a TV show called 'Bones.' I'm sure you heard of it before. You know the show that kinda doesn't make much sense, but enough to entertain you for close to an hour. Hopefully this blog doesn't play out the same way.
From watching this one particular episode, I could see Toyota Motors spending quite bit of money to advertise their newly designed Camry by implementing into the show.
Let me give you a little bit of background.
The FBI guy was like, "Hey, you missed the exit!." And the psychologist guy was like, "Oh, my GPS navigation shows me the shortest route." Well, it was something like that. Two of them manage to play with GPS for like a minute or two.
I wonder how much Toyota Motors spent to get it aired. That was longer than what you would normally see on commercial intermission. Then again, it should be more effective since there is much less rate of probability that audiences will tune out while in commercial and mainly you have these favorite TV characters selling you products while on their way to investigate a crime.
I've seem this happen quite often before as well. It seems like it is a new trend. I know Hyundai Motors was going hard on 'Burn Notice', airs on USA network. I've seen it on 'Leverage' as well, which is on TBS network.
I couldn't find out how much Toyota paid for that advertisement, but I found some numbers from their SEC financial reporting. Which shows that they do spend quite a bit of money in advertisement.
http://www.toyota-global.com/investors/ir_library/sec/pdf/20-F_201103_final.pdf
Above link is Toyota Motors Financial reporting to SEC for 2011.
They have been spending close to 4 billion dollars in advertising each year. Their revenue in 2011 was over 200 billion dollars. So, roughly they are spending about 2% in advertising each year or less. They actually had much higher revenue before 2009 but they still managed to spend about the same. Obviously there is a limitation as to how much you can spend on advertising. There is probably a peak point where there is no substantial increase in sales with marginal increase in advertisement spending. Toyota could also advertise in same level every year due to the fact that they need to maintain their brand image. However, with inflation as high as they are, they are in a way spending less every year.
Either way, they can afford to spend money on TV shows and even put in some lines to advertise their products.
With sluggish sales, should Toyota spend more on advertisement? In recent years Toyota's market shares have gone down. American cars, not trucks, are thriving in many of their new models. Taking back what they had lost. Asian contenders such as Hyundai and Kia (even though they are basically the same) are taking over without out playing the haggled prices. Overall, qualities are improving and in some cases Americans and Koreans have surpassed in envisioning new market. While Ford and Hyudai/Kia has come up with their newly developed turbo charged system and direct injection system to increase power and MPG, Toyota is still sticking with multi-port injection and V6 engines. Honda has not shown any new development in engines, but they have always been in business of keeping small displacement engines. On the flip side Mazda came out recently with skyactiv technology, which is the same route as Ford and Hyunda/Kia. Direct injection, which used to be a golden gate to luxury cars, is now available in entry level to family sedan. This changes the came. Could Toyota be developing new engines to catch up? Or, even take over? Could it be the reason why they are holding off on higher investment?
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