With 98% brand awareness, Toyota’s marketing focus is often on driving brand affinity or boosting awareness with specific products, said Alex Ahrendsen, Manager of Vehicle Marketing and Communications.
For Toyota, that’s its trucks.
“Even though the brand as a whole has a lot of awareness, that’s still a space that we’re trying to grow in, our truck awareness as well as consideration and overall affinity,” Ahrendsen said.
The vehicle company announced it is offering six months of complimentary access to OnX Elite, which is a digital mapping tool to help consumers navigate trails and off-road areas offline for Tundra, Tacoma, 4Runner, Sequoia and Land Cruiser models.
Toyota’s trucks are designed to help people explore the outdoors and the trail maps are a natural way to help further that goal, Ahrendsen said. This is the second year OnX and Toyota have worked together, which also includes trail restoration efforts. Toyota provides trucks and its employees volunteer to help restore trails that have deteriorated from natural disasters or neglect.
“We like to sell cars, that’s our main business, but at the same time, we want to give back to communities,” Ahrendsen said. “It’s such a natural extension that feels authentic to the truck community in general, is clearing these trails are off-roading.”
New this year is a content creator program. The brands are working with six influencers to post content to social media 10 times per month for the year in their contract. The content promotes responsible off-road recreation and trail restoration. OnX is leading the efforts for the content creators, but Toyota is funding it, Ahrendsen said.
How Toyota and OnX Both Benefit
OnX receives brand exposure through Toyota’s marketing efforts, such as a press release, point-of-sale kits at the dealership and tapping some of its NASCAR drivers for promotions as well, she said.
“They’re getting a lot of marketing out of it from us,” Ahrendsen said. “We’re a huge brand and connecting with us increases their cache.”
The benefit for Toyota is that it gives consumers a “sweetener” when making a decision about which truck to buy. Trucks are an expensive purchase and an OnX membership is a fraction of the cost. Thus, shoppers will likely view the membership as an incentive and added benefit, rather than a main driver to purchase, she said.
“It also positions us in this authentic space, which we’re trying to get more of that perception of this outdoor off-roading space,” she said. “Toyota traditionally doesn’t have that connection. That’s a little bit more of the American-made brands.”
In fact, Ford also offers an OnX membership to its truck owners, so this type of partnership is not new. Toyota’s offer, however, extends beyond just OnX but also includes the trail restoration and content creator program, which is how it differentiates itself and ensures the partnership is authentic, Ahrendsen said in an email statement.
Toyota offering off-road maps “puts our money where our mouth is,” in encouraging truck owners to go off the beaten path, Ahrendsen said. Plus, one of the top questions consumers ask the Toyota customer service center is if the trucks have maps built into them. Currently, Toyota doesn’t, but this partnership allows Toyota to address that point about having these maps to trails that are not typically on Google or Apple Maps, plus are available offline.
Murky Measurement
How much this partnership makes an impact, however, is hard to measure.
OnX is providing customer engagement metrics on Toyota truck owners using the benefit. Toyota is looking at increased awareness of trucks, earned media, social engagement and overall brand affinity.
“We’re also hoping we can strengthen customer loyalty by offering this benefit,” Ahrendsen said. “It positions us in a way that supports customers through their outdoor lifestyle.”
Toyota is sending out OnX-specific email blasts, which it will track for click-through rates.
“This is a little bit hard to track, but essentially if there is some sort of connection with that customer buying a new truck and them participating in the OnX offering,” she said. “That’s a looser metric, probably harder to measure than just brand affinity, brand engagement.”
