About Toyota
Toyota Motor Corporation, founded in 1937 is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 million vehicles per year. It has almost 1,000 subsidiary and affiliate companies
Toyota Marketing Strategy and Implementation
In 2003, Scion, a pioneering brand under Toyota debuted in the market.
An employee at Scion, Jeri Yoshizu, was a part of the team and wanted to target young audiences by providing a free internet radio station. The radio station would include artists playing their own music. Yoshizu got approval from her superiors and created the radio station, Scion17(also known as Scion AV), keeping in mind that all DJ sets had to be G-rated to safeguard the company’s reputation.
Later Yoshizu advertised Scion17 through social networking sites and word of mouth, instead of TV or newspaper advertisements. Back in the early 2000s, this was quite an unconventional marketing strategy adopted by Toyota.
Results
Scion17 got popular and by 2007 it had more than 10,000 monthly listener hours. Scion17 was considered the start of free online streaming services.
It is amazing how simple ideas go on to yield great results. The Scion17, along with the rest of the Scion brand, was absorbed into Toyota in August 2016. Before being absorbed, it produced several films and web series and held music festivals and conferences. All of this was possible because of a simple employee idea.
Your employees might have such ideas too. You too can benefit from them provided you have the right medium to capture those ideas and a platform to take it right from idea to implementation.
Need help finding the right platform for your organization’s innovation needs? This listicle should help you find one – 15 Idea management tools to facilitate innovation in your organization.
