01/28/2010 10:01:53 AM 
Something that it's key competitors can only be extremely happy about, especially when a number of the players including- GM, Ford and the the emerging Korean brands have made such strides in this space.
The problem is especially acute for Toyota because quality has been such an integral part of the company, management books have been written about it and the whole DNA of the organization is structured around it.
It's been suggested that Toyota's push for growth has been the cause of all these problems. It was so fixated with overtaking GM to become the biggest automaker in the world, that corners were cut and compromises made.
Pushing hard for growth has been the undoing of many a great brand.
Toyota's problem seems to a show a lack of understanding of how to scale their production to achieve optimal quality and not thinking hard enough about the impact of potential failure on the brand.
Starbucks is another brand who expanded way to fast and ended up diluting their equity.
In both these cases, while it certainly true that they built amazingly powerful brands, they failed to treat them with respect and didn't use tools to help them to understand the resulting impact of over-expansion on their most valuable assets.
Quite simply, their brands were important, but not important enough to be front and center of the CFO and CEOs agenda.
Posted by Ed Cotton
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