Worried dealers add voice to PR push
WASHINGTON (AP) — How rattled are Toyota dealers about the company’s problems? Some dealerships nearly hired the same crisis public-relations firm that handled the travails of socialite Paris Hilton, singer Chris Brown and a company that California called the state’s worst inland polluter.
With Toyota waging a furious lobbying and advertising battle to protect its name after the recall of 8.5 million vehicles, many of its 1,200 dealers are taking matters into their own hands. A group in Southern California almost retained the PR firm Sitrick and Co. of Los Angeles.
Insiders said the idea was nixed after Toyota officials said the company should speak with one voice — theirs.
Dozens of dealers will lobby members of Congress this week as two House oversight committees hold hearings. Some dealers organized their own advertising campaigns; many are nervous and angry.
“As we get into the media circus and the congressional panels which may stir things up again, they’re so afraid this is going to terrify customers and they just want to get their story out,” said Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association.
The behind-the-scenes activities highlight dealers’ worries about a crisis that has caused Toyota sales to plummet, and about a corporate response that some of them consider slow-footed and inadequate.
It also underscores their willingness to flex their muscle on Capitol Hill, where dealers have clout in every congressional district as major employers and pillars of the tax base and community.
Often encouraged and reimbursed by manufacturers, scores of dealers lobbied in recent months when Congress provided loans to struggling Chrysler and General Motors, and enacted the Cash for Clunkers program giving buyers money for trading gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient models.
“An overwhelming unified front is surely going to stir positive attention, and send a strong message of significance, commitment and support to our members of Congress,” Tammy Darvish, vice president of four Toyota dealerships around Washington wrote Friday in an e-mail urging dealers to lobby Congress this week. “Every Toyota dealer is in a position to choose to either be a part of something or subject to it.”
Among the restive dealers is Jack Fitzgerald, who owns Toyota dealerships in Gaithersburg, Md., and Chambersburg, Pa. He produced a 60-second commercial for television and his Web site in which he reassures customers, “Your car is safe to drive. Toyota says so. And your car is not going to depreciate. Jack says so.”
A dealer for 44 years, Fitzgerald said he decided to run his own ads because he was unhappy with Toyota’s response.
“They’re so late doing it,” he said of Toyota’s ads addressing the recalls. “They should have been doing this two months ago. I’m doing it because they weren’t doing anything.”
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