Safe to Undervalue PR? Ask Toyota . . .

Posted on | February 15, 2010 | 2 Comments

Forbes.com published an article this week called “Toyota’s Snowy Respite” that basically said that the bad weather kept the U.S. government from hassling Toyota about their recall disaster.

You can read the article here: “Toyota’s Snowy Respite” by Tim Kelly (www.twitter.com/kellyJapan)

The most interesting part of the article was where it notes that Japan in general does not value public relations:

“In Japan it isn’t only Toyota that suffers from low-quality public relations; pretty much every other corporation is unprepared for the type of crisis that has enveloped the nation’s biggest. Workers are commonly rotated every few years through PR, which is often a dumping ground for duffers shunned by other departments. If you’re a backwater widget maker it’s not such a big deal, but if you happen to be the world’s biggest automaker, the damage incompetent flaks can do by turning a crisis into a catastrophe can cost millions of dollars to repair.”

There’s no small amount of Schadenfreude in play as Toyota struggles with these issues, especially given that it has created an image of “an aloof and arrogant company.”

The article closes noting that, as the company works to fix its cars’ mechanical glitches, it might spare time to mend its PR, too.

Did you know that as a culture, Japan does not prioritize PR?

What other instances of PR being overlooked have you noticed (besides Tiger Woods)?

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