Who has it worse Tiger or Toyota?

Sometime in the next month Tiger will probably go on Oprah. Or maybe there will be a Diane Sawyer interview. Elin will likely play some part.

Tiger will talk about his problems….share how he’s trying to make things right for his wife and family. Do a genuine mea culpa. And then give a gazillion dollars to Haiti earthquake victims.

A few weeks later he’ll be competitive at the Masters. And the world will start to offer its forgiveness.

Within a year……if he stays straight…….he’ll be back.

But it won’t be that easy for Toyota.

With almost every day the news seems to get worse for Toyota. When did they know? Did they ignore evidence before this fall? And now there’s problems with Prius. 8 million + cars now recalled. That’s 8 million customers who previously were known for their loyalty now with nagging questions. Will they lose all of them? Of course not. But they’ll lose a bunch. And like any business those last customers contribute a whole lot of the profit to any company. So the implications for Toyota and for their dealers are pretty significant.

And don’t think this ends anytime soon. The lawsuits from the victim of these few crashes will go on forever. And quite possibly they’ll lead to even more disclosures about the companies mistakes. This will be in the news for years.

Toyota has had almost icon status among car companies for quality. So this issue goes straight at the strength of their brand. And that makes it a huge deal. Maybe one of the most critical fights to save a brand since the legendary Tylenol fight. But Tylenol got off to a way better start then Toyota. Tylenol offered full disclosure and responded instantly. I’m not sure Toyota met that standard.

Once again my Toyota dealer friends are in a tough spot which proves, once again, that dealers are so much at the mercy of things they can’t control, like mistakes made by their manufacturer. And Toyota forced so many dealers to build new (high overhead) facilities in the last few years. And dealers did so because the brand had been so strong.

In December I wondered if there could ever be a brand that destructed faster than Tiger Woods.

We may be seeing that now.