Marketing communication: principles and practice

Table 13.3
Press and magazine advertising coverage for the Yaris communications
strategy
Review sections
Magazines
Guardian Weekend
Marie-Claire
Independent on Saturday Magazine
Cosmopolitan
Mail on Sunday – You
New Woman
Times Magazine
She
Sunday Times – Style
Red
Telegraph Magazine
Ideal Homes
Daily Mail Weekend
Elle Decoration
Observer Life
Living, etc.
Hello!

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Building the relationship with promotions
The main strategy to promote the Yaris outside the advertising capitalized on the existing
relationships customers have with other brands they buy to gain endorsement of the Yaris
and therefore acceptance by the core target market.
The strategy operated on three levels:
1 Toyota activity: tie-ups with partners on a national basis.
2 Toyota/Toyota dealer-combined activity: tie-ups where Toyota arranged the promotion,
but there were elements where local dealer participation was possible.
3 Dealer activity: individual tie-ups with relevant partners in dealers’ local areas. 
Toyota activity covered:
•
Ideal Home Exhibition, Earls Court from 17 March to 11 April 1999. The show attracted
over 525,000 visitors with a profile that matched that of Yaris’s core market. Toyota
sponsored the main refreshment area, Café Yaris, had vehicles on display in the Café and
ran a competition giving the opportunity to win a trip to see the midnight sun in Greenland.
•
BBC Fashion Week Live, Wembley Arena 22–25 April 1999. Yaris sponsored the designer
catwalk at the show and a separate vehicle display was constructed.
•
Shopping centre roadshows. There were three shopping centre roadshows during 1999,
which toured the major shopping centres around the UK. The tour was heavily branded
Toyota and the Yaris was again displayed.
•
Magazine promotions. Five magazines ran promotions that featured Yaris from June to
September 1999. In line with the overall strategy, the titles chosen were aimed at the
target audience and also reflected the six core values of the Yaris message. Titles included
She
, 
Red, Living, etc
.
Joint Toyota and dealer activity included the cinema promotions above, where the display
cars were supplied by the local dealer, who also took the opportunity in supervising the
displays to introduce themselves to the customers. In addition, a tie-up with Principals
involved a dedicated insert into the Principals statement mailing together with a £10
Principals discount voucher which the customer had to get stamped by visiting their local
Toyota dealer.
Dealer activity included individual shopping centre displays, and displays at local
supermarkets and garden centres. Dealers were provided with their own promotional kits
to facilitate this – see Figure 13.7.
In addition to this activity, dealers were supplied with point-of-sale displays and literature
which also supported the main messages.
This covered the initial launch of the Yaris. Additional activity was also planned to continue
throughout 2000 and 2001 to ensure the message was communicated.
Results
The Yaris launch was the most successful launch of a new Toyota up until that date.
•
Toyota Yaris was named European Car of the Year for 2000, the first time for Toyota and
the second time that any non-European manufacturer had won the award.

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