Toyota Wants Your Ideas with a Twist

When I first caught the news of Toyota launching a new site called "Ideas for Good", I thought it was your typical request for consumer ideas much like My Starbucks Idea or Ford's Your Ideas. However, Toyota is taking an unusual, though complicated, twist on the concept.

Toyota wants people to generate ideas from a handful of their technologies. If you are not familiar with Toyota's technologies that's okay as they provide links to details. For example get to know more about T.H.U.M.S.:

T.H.U.M.S. (Total HUman Model for Safety) is an advanced injury-simulation software that measures more than the conventional crash test dummy can.

It's an interesting approach. Here is a technology developed by Toyota now tell us what we should do with it beyond its original automotive application. So far there were no ideas posted on the site, but that probably has more to do with today being the first day of promoting the site.

Toyota is promoting the ideas site using television ads which is also a different route than Ford, Starbucks and BestBuy who kept their idea sites to digital promotional channels, not TV.

Infiniti, First to Place Owner Reviews on Their Site

I was going to write an in-depth article this morning about Infiniti's new implementation of owner reviews on its shopping site http://www.infinitiusa.com. The use of consumer reviews on an OEM website is the first implementation I have seen from a U.S. automaker.

Why is Infiniti the first to do this? I don't know. I do know that every other automaker has thought about it or has been pitched it by at least one consultant. Having been in discussion years ago about such a proposal, the big road block for many automakers is liability. Allowing people to write whatever issues or problems they have about your car on the manufacturer's own site adds a level of knowledge about a problem that could come back to cause an OEM issues say with a future recall or other litigation issue (by the way this personal example is not from my current client. It is from a past discussion with another automaker years ago.)

So Infiniti has decided to allow "owner reviews", not consumer reviews, but owner reviews. The difference is the reviews cannot be entered by just anyone. They have to entered by some who currently or in the past owned an Inifiniti. At least that's what I believe.

I tried entering an owner review on their site, but there is no place to do such a thing. I click on "Did you find this review helpful?" On one of the existing reviews and am told, "We're sorry, you must be logged in to submit feedback. Please go back and log in prior to submission."

Okay, but where do I log in? I search the navigation, looked all around the reviews section, and I even created a owner profile using a VIN number and providing some personal information. I was able to setup an owner account and log into the owner's section, but still there was no way to submit feedback on any vehicle review page.

As it stands now, I was completely unable to figure out how an owner enters a review on Infiniti's site leaving me to wonder where are these reviews coming from? I checked Yahoo Auto's since the review format looked very similar, but no luck.

It is interesting Infiniti is showing owner reviews on its site. I browsed several models and found, unsurprisingly, that most people who spent $40k-$70k on an Infiniti felt good about their decision and wrote a positive review.

There were a few issues people had with their cars and some reviews gave 3 instead of 5 stars on a few criteria. I'm also quite certain that reviews are moderated by the company, meaning they have to be approved before going live on Infiniti's site. I wanted to test this idea but with no place to enter a review I was unable to see how that process works.

Infiniti's use of owner reviews is an interesting one and research from other shopping experiences (shoes, electronics, etc.) In one 2009 study, a U.K. electronic parts supplier found that reviews increased conversions by 14.2%. Other examples exist in e-commerce research showing conversions/transactions do have a positive increase on a site when reviews are there; though, I have seen studies that it only applies to products with favorable reviews. Products with mediocre response tend to have lesser transactions.

Well it will be interesting to see who else follows Infiniti's lead or if others follow at all. Personally, I feel consumer reviews for cars exist in so many places where online auto shoppers already are, that providing them on the OEM site is rather pointless; though, I'm sure some disagree with me.

Auto Sales Forecast Hit By Analysts' Loss of Confidence

Automotive sales forecasts for 2009 are getting repeatedly slashed as consumer confidence plummets. New numbers from J.D. Power show an anticipated 10.4 million unit sales, that's 1 million less than the number they had going into 2009.

With the stock market falling to a number that is half from it's peak in 2007 and with mid-600,000 numbers of new people seeking unemployment benefits, no of this comes as a surprise.

From the Associated Press: "Automakers such as Kia and Subaru, which many car buyers view as high-value brands, could also outperform the competition, he said. Subaru is the only automaker that Toprak expects to post a sales increase for the month.

Sales of the automaker's top-selling all-wheel drive Forester, which starts at $19,995, more than doubled to 5,162 units in January." more.