Even social media can be unfriendly at times

The likes of YouTube and Facebook have potential for brands to promote themselves, but Toyota Australia learnt there are traps lurking in new technologies.

Power to the people has been a rallying cry for many a movement, but sometimes people power can seriously backfire, as Toyota Australia found out last week. The venerable mid-market, safety-first, value-for-money car maker had what can only be described as a blowback in its tailpipe.

Toyota tried creating a clever snappy advertisement for its Yaris model through an online competition. The winning entry, an ad called Clean Getaway, was selected by popular choice. It was then endorsed by Toyota and its advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and then released to the public. Unfortunately for Toyota the general public did not view it as clever or snappy, in fact they deemed the ad as being incestuous, downgrading and sexist. Toyota quickly reversed and pulled the ad. I can just imagine the embarrassing conversation taking place between the country head in Australia and headquarters in Japan. This was Toyota's first major foray into social media and the outcome left many skid marks.

Social media is a broad canvas which encompasses many elements; it is known in geek circles, as I found out at the quite enthralling GeekFest held at The Shelter in Dubai recently, as a Web 2.0 technology. If you are still grappling with opening your e-mail and browsing the Web, I have sympathy for you. Web 2.0 allows users to create and distribute online content. So to some extent it is driven by the people. Think YouTube for videos, Flickr for photos, Facebook for telling everyone how you feel and Twitter if you have an itchy thumb.

"Popular opinion is a good thing, but perhaps a bunch of creative, over-aged teenage men are not the best judge of what will pull on the heart and mind strings of Toyota's intended young female target audience," says Jim Wallace, a partner at FEEL brand consultants. "What should be questioned is not the social media platform but rather the credibility of those making the final decision on this advertisement for the Yaris.

"Toyota unfortunately missed the mark by using a male chauvinistic point of view for a female audience. What they set out to achieve was ground-breaking and potentially great. Giving consumers ownership and perceived control of their chosen brand will ensure the brand stays meaningful and relevant." Toyota had seen its peers in the industry conduct successful marketing campaigns using social media and naturally it wanted to replicate this success. In the car business marketing activity peaks with the hype which surrounds the launch of a new model, which might be once a year.

Seen from this perspective Toyota was trying to keep the buzz moving year round through social media. Engaging with its customers through social media would be like conducting a gigantic ongoing conversation with its customers, so that it stayed relevant in their lives. Mini, a subsidiary of BMW, was able to do this through its Mini takes the States marketing campaign. Mini USA created a hugely successful online marketing programme that then got Mini owners to turn up at driving conventions all across the country. Owners shared ideas with the company and chilled out with one another. That was similar in some respects to the popular HOG, or Harley Owners Group, runs by the motorcycle maker Harley Davidson.

Mini, by listening to its customers through social media, discovered that the real reason Mini owners loved their cars was because they saw themselves as a group of people who belonged together; they identified themselves as Mini owners. To them, Mini meant cool, but it also meant community. And Mini owners were the best promoters of the brand to potential buyers. Following each owners' convention the online buzz went up in forums, photos on Flickr, and videos on YouTube.

An increase in the online buzz meant owners were promoting the brand more rigorously. By tracking online promoter activity Mini was able to note a rise in sales in the following months. "The indisputable fact is that if you get it right and spend time to really understand and appreciate the online audiences out there, there are tangible opportunities," says Lee Mancini of the social media marketing company Sekari.

"Cadbury conducted online influencer analysis through message boards, blogs, social networks, YouTube and student web sites to develop a map of its online stakeholders for its Wispa chocolate bar. It then mined their ideas and created a grassroots marketing campaign which saw 47,000 people join the Wispa Facebook page and resulted in 24 million bars of Wispa being sold in six weeks with an 11 per cent rise in total sales in the UK."

Social media can help companies understand what their brand stands for. They know what message they are trying to get across, but how is this different to what the audience is taking in? Companies can also keep track of change: are consumers talking about their prices, customer service or the competitor? Like Cadbury, if companies can locate the influencers in the market, it is an opportunity to cultivate them for future brand development. And of course customers have some great ideas that can be picked up by simply listening.

For Mr Mancini, social media is about developing a relationship with individuals. "People are expressing their opinions and conducting conversations about your brand," he said. "Mapping the key influencers in your market will help you understand and monitor their opinions. To create intelligence which is actionable requires tracking tools and experienced analysts who have a background in making sense of the data."

Toyota got it horribly wrong and the barbarians came through the gates. But if a company does not engage with its customers, a competitor will. Power to the people sounds grand; however the final decision rests with the brand custodian, the company. There can be no excuse for thinking otherwise. Rehan Khan is a consultant and writer based in Dubai.