Reputation Management: What can Toyota do?

Of course the Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda will have to step down.  Then Toyota will have to get through the Waxman Congressional hearing on February 25th and explain what it knew and when did it know it.  For a while it should lay low.

Then, just like any other fallen entity, it can start back on reconfiguring its branding in the U.S.  The jobs message is the one which will resonate.  Then there can be micro messages embedded about how Toyota is a company which still trains and develops its human assets.  Another key theme will be green, just as Wal-Mart, no stranger to negative publicity, is leveraging.  This can include any investment in mass transit.  A third outreach could be to help American citizens understand the issues and the candidates in the 2012 campaign.  Populism will peak around then and Toyota can't miss out.