Last Friday in a hastily arranged press conference, Akio Toyoda, Toyota's president and grandson of the company's founder, made his first formal public apology to consumers, admitting, "We are in a crisis." The car company's image meltdown began on Jan. 21 when it announced a global recall of certain models because of accelerator problems. At the time, the company did little PR damage control while the news media and consumers online set off safety alarms.
Advertisers that bought spots in this year's Super Bowl saw a sharp spike in online references relating directly to their brands, according to Prophesee.
The spot that stole the show during Sunday's Super Bowl was Google's. The simplest of the bunch, it also effortlessly (but so effectively) dug down to the brand's core. It was smart, charming and pure. How pure? It reminded me of the best line from among all of the A-B ads: "I'm getting a case of Bud Light out of a refrigerator made of Bud Light." It was a whole cool love story made of nothing but Google. We just had to follow the demo, made for pennies (perhaps even cheaper than some of the Doritos ads' low-three-figure budgets), that never strayed visually from the Google site itself.
Three jockeys up front for the Arse, blackcurrant team more exciting than the Villa match and John Terry somewhat ironically throwing his captain's armband to the Chelsea support. Yes, it's our weekly dispatches from the Premier League's terrace frontlines...
