By Ty Burke

This story was originally published in the Fall 24 issue of strategy magazine.

Inside any showroom, at any auto dealership, you can find a shiny new vehicle gleaming beneath bright fluorescent lights. It will be tricked out with the latest tech and the finest leather the auto maker has to offer. And, for most automotive companies, the look and feel of that new vehicle will be a calling card that draws in new customers.

But Toyota isn’t most automotive companies. What really sets a Toyota apart isn’t the way it looks when it’s new – it’s the way it works when it’s old.

Over the last six decades, Toyota has built its brand on value, quality and longevity. You’ll find proof of this in the parking lot of your local supermarket, where there’s a twenty-year-old Corolla still dutifully making the rounds. Or out on the open road, where a kitted-out RAV4 is hundreds of thousands of kms deep into living the #VanLife.

Every one of those old beaters is a rolling billboard for the company’s commitment to quality, and it’s no fluke they’re still going strong. Toyota’s quality is the outcome of a philosophy that begins long before a vehicle ever rolls off the assembly line. And it is the foundation of a brand that has become one of the country’s most trusted.

As Toyota celebrates 60 years in Canada, the company is reflecting on its strengths and preparing to use them to meet the challenges of the future.

“Continuous improvement is part of Toyota’s DNA. We are always re-evaluating everything we do in the spirit of improving it,” says Cyril Dimitris, vice-president of sales and marketing at Toyota Canada. “We seek to become more and more aligned with what our customers want and what they need – high quality products and service. Over the years, that has helped us grow.”

Time is a secret ingredient

Today, Toyotas are ubiquitous, but it wasn’t always this way. When the company’s first vehicles landed on Canadian shores in 1964, Asian cars were virtually unknown. Back then, the market was dominated by the big three Detroit automakers: Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. At first, Toyota’s entry into the market didn’t move the needle.

Quotas on imported vehicles and requirements for domestically produced auto parts put a hard cap on company growth, so Toyota sold only a few hundred cars in Canada each year. It wasn’t until the energy crisis of the early 1970s that sales of smaller, more fuel-efficient Toyota vehicles started to take off.

“Growth was slower than we would have liked, simply due to the restrictions,” says Dimitris. “At the time, all Toyota vehicles were manufactured in Japan. Opening the economy to international trade was obviously helpful to Toyota’s growth, but another key thing we did was start building our vehicles where we sell them – not only in Canada, but throughout North America.”

Today, more than half a million vehicles are built at the company’s factories in Cambridge and Woodbridge, Ontario. The Toyota vehicles produced there are among the highest quality made anywhere in the world, and Dimitris credits the company’s manufacturing operations with accelerating growth in Canada. Local Toyota plants routinely earn J.D.

Power Quality Awards for being among the best auto factories in the Americas, and the company’s South Plant factory in Cambridge was the first outside of Japan to build Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand.

Dimitris credits the company’s success in localizing the brand with how it weaved Toyota into the social fabric of the country, which made Canadians more receptive to buying a Toyota. But any effect on sales was gradual. When Toyota opened its factory in Cambridge in 1986, it sold a little more than 78,000 vehicles in Canada. By 1992, that number had risen to nearly 88,000. By 1999, more than 100,000 vehicles each year.

Toyota’s gradual growth gave the company time to build its brand. Consumers were initially reluctant to purchase a Toyota, which were all manufactured in Japan at the time. Back then, Japanese manufacturing didn’t have the reputation for quality that it does today. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the company advertised both its Corolla and Tercel models as being the cheapest cars available – while emphasizing that they were still well-made and fun to drive.

The brand built its reputation as having the most durable cars on the road. Dimitris notes there was no “big bang” moment where Canadians’ perception of the brand underwent a sudden shift. The company built customer trust by providing and promoting high-quality products, each one better than the last.

Over the years, the automotive industry has undergone many transformations – from sedans to SUVs; and from combustion engines to hybrid and electric vehicles. Given the industry’s constant change, Toyota must remain nimble to maintain its leadership position. With nearly 200,000 in annual car sales, the brand is among the best-selling auto brands in Canada. But the company is acutely aware that the strength of a brand is earned, not given.

“Trust is something that is very hard to gain and very easy to lose,” says Dimitris. “We put a lot of attention on the service side of the business. We like to say that the sales department sells the first vehicle, but every vehicle after that is sold by service.”

Customer loyalty is a big part of Toyota’s brand strategy. For most of its customers, their main point of contact will be their local dealership. They only buy the vehicle once, but they will have it serviced multiple times.

“Our dealers are the best people to serve our customers and execute on the brand promise,” says Dimitris. “We work together collaboratively, and Toyota tries to instill a sense of confidence by producing better vehicles. Over time, trust in our brand increases because our customers have a good experience. When it comes time to buy a new vehicle, they buy another Toyota. Before you know it, they’ve gone through four cycles.”

This connection between service levels and brand loyalty shows up in the data. According to Leger’s Annual Corporate Reputation Index for 2023, the company has the best reputation in the auto industry and ranks 17th among all companies in Canada. According to J.D. Power and Associates in 2024, the company had the highest brand loyalty of any mass market vehicle for the third consecutive year. More than 62% of its customers were repeat buyers.

An inflection point

In Japanese culture, a 60th birthday is a milestone known as kanreki. At that age, a person has lived through five full cycles of the Chinese Zodiac and has a wealth of experience to draw upon.

“Kanreki is a representation of rebirth and reflection, of taking stock of your present and resetting yourself for the future,” says Dimitris. “We chose this concept as the theme for our 60th birthday because it is very fitting for where we are, not only as a company, but as an industry. We have achieved a lot, but our focus right needs to be about what we must do to be successful for the next sixty years.”

In August 2024, Toyota marked its anniversary with a 9,000-kilometre-long cross-country road trip that visited every province in Canada. The 18-day-long event was a kind of relay between St. John’s, Newfoundland and Victoria, British Columbia, and it highlighted 20 different models of Toyota – from the sporty GR Corolla hatchback to the full-size Toyota Tundra pick-up truck.

Fittingly, the road trip honoured the company’s past in Canada while looking to the future. After a jaunt along the shores of Lake Superior to do a little fishing, the road trip used the western legs of the tour to shine a light on its low-emissions vehicles and electrification.

“For the automotive industry, the story of the next sixty years will be the story of how electrification evolves,” says Dimitris. “As an industry, we are all navigating this journey, but it is still not clear exactly how it will go.

“At Toyota, we are building our chops to be able to develop products that will meet [consumers’] needs in an environmentally responsible way. We are still at the early edge of a major transformation, but that is our view of what leadership will be in this new era.”

In 2024, the company also launched its new masterbrand, “For What Matters Most,” which emphasizes that what matters to its customers, also matters to the company.

“The campaign was built around the pillars of what makes a Toyota vehicle unique: longevity, safety, excitement,” says Toyota Canada’s national manager of marketing, Ian Lanaway. “People already think of these things when they think of Toyota. The masterbrand retells a story they already know. It reinforces the importance of staying focused on the consumer, and what they need.”

In the campaign, TV spots position Toyota vehicles as an integral part of everyday family life, depicting the essential role they play in the memorable moments that make up life. Childhood BFFs grow up and take the family Prius on adventures. Parents wait up for a teenager out with friends, taking comfort in the strong safety record of their vehicle. A schoolgirl demonstrates family adventures to her classmates, before running to embrace her father when he arrives in a muddied Land Cruiser.

In each commercial, the product is a character in its own right, with its quiet dependability enabling the experiences of others. They tell the story of how a vehicle that lasts for decades is not simply a utilitarian way to get from point A to point B. It becomes an integral part of a customer’s life.

“When we tell people a Toyota lasts, we’re not making it up,” says Dimitris. “Some brands try to punch above their weight and sell an illusion. We are very, very fortunate we don’t have to do that. The way we claim to be is the way we actually are.”

Toyota Safety Sense

With Toyota, safety comes standard. The Toyota Safety Sense is a suite of features included in all Toyota vehicles, such as its pre-collision system for pedestrian detection. A 2017 campaign developed by Saatchi & Saatchi put Toyota’s safety features front and centre with 60-second cinema and 30-second TV spots showing Toyota drivers arriving safely at their destination. The focus on safety was nothing new for the automotive company, but these ads put the accent on how emerging safety technologies can help keep drivers of all ages safe.

Money Well Spent

If you want to buy a new Toyota today, you’ll need to add your name to a waiting list and you could find yourself financing at an interest rate above 5%. That’s just the name of the game in 2024. But, back in 2009, the company was looking to move leftover vehicles off the lot. The Great Financial Crisis had shaken consumer confidence, and Toyota’s annual Red Tag Days sales event was promoted under the theme of “Money Well Spent.” It touted “never seen before” 0% financing on select vehicles and complimentary job loss protection for customers who unexpectedly found themselves unemployed. Those were the days.

Start Your Impossible

It was during the Tokyo Olympics that Toyota and the U.S. offices of Saatchi & Saatchi launched the “Start Your Impossible” global campaign. The platform also made an appearance at the 2018 SuperBowl, where Toyota Canada told the life story of Canadian alpine skier Lauren Woolstencroft, an eight-time Paralympic Gold medalist. The 60-second spot was one of 100 stories, and Toyota chose to feature Woolstencroft’s story because of how well she exemplified the campaign’s themes of facing and overcoming adversity. Later, in 2022, Toyota focused on Canadian Paralympic cross-country skier Brian McKeever, who lost his sight to Stargardt Macular Degeneration, and told the story of how he and his brother trained together, with McKeever eventually becoming a 20-time Paralympic medalist.

Red Tag Days, continued

Remember 2020? Back when public health restrictions left new vehicles sitting unsold on auto dealer lots? Back then, Toyota decided to remind their customers of the charms of a new vehicle. In a campaign created by The&Partnership, Toyota promoted its annual Red Tag Days event with TV commercials featuring drivers daydreaming about a new Toyota. A man in lockdown stares longingly out his kitchen window at a new SUV. And a woman, who took up pottery as a pandemic hobby, imagines the pottery wheel’s pedal is the accelerator of the Toyota. The campaign sought to capitalize on the zeitgeist. At the time, most people did not feel comfortable travelling by air, but most said they were OK with road travel.