Toyotas Tests Ways To Exterminate The Blandmobile

Where would market research companies be without their sugar daddies, the car companies? There is no consumer product that is more expensive than a car, and nowhere is the amount of research money spent by unit sale higher than in the car industry. Research for a new car can be as crude as a few pictures and a questionnaire, or it can be something that is appropriately called a “clinic study,” with customers as lab rats.

All these methods have a flaw: The human factor. Data collected must be aggregated and analyzed by someone. He or she can twist the data however they like. That led to a famous quote by a long deceased former sales director at Volkswagen, who said: “I only believe in research I forged myself.”

Something had to be done, and Toyota is doing it. According to The Nikkei [sub], Toyota “is taking a new tack in car development: listening directly to potential customers rather than relying on market trend data, a move prompted by changing customer preferences.”

What they do is give customers test drives. While they drive, someone in the other seat chats with the driver. That someone in the other seat is an employee of Toyota Marketing Japan Co., a newly established subsidiary and the brainchild of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda. No more sugar daddy. Toyota keeps the sugar in-house.

The car is outfitted with small microphones that pick up casual comments from visitors when they get inside the vehicles. No questionnaires, no clinical environment, no interpretation. Executives get reactions straight from the customer’s mouth.

Says the Nikkei: “This is part of an effort to break the reputation Toyota cars have as lacking excitement. The company is seeking to create “surprise elements” in its new models.”

So maybe, by way of the built-in microphones, we’ll get something else than the blandmobiles that made Toyota infamous and successful. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.