[Tone]

I think the main weakness with the paper is that it implies that Toyota's successful branding (propaganda, as it refers to it) is somehow a uniquely Toyota quality.

So, when GM uses John Mellencamp's song in a truck ad (and gets him to work on the visuals for the American ad as well), they aren't trying to get some of the artist's populist image (Mellencamp works hard for efforts like FarmAid) to rub off on their products? Is this not, in the author's words, propaganda? And, isn't that the whole point of successful advertising and branding?

The actual sociological part -- the part that discusses why Americans are swayed by this kind of branding effort -- would probably apply to all consumer branding.

The ironic part of this is that while the Prius has been a very successful marketing and branding effort that has become an integral part of the overall Toyota brand, the big pickup efforts seemed to have mostly failed. Toyota has spent a ton of money and effort to try to make headway in the big pickup market and really only made a small dent in the GM/Ford dominance. Plus, their timing really, really sucked ... they've now invested heavily in a shrinking market; and the people most likely to continue buying pickups ... the hard core pickup people ... are the least likely to buy a Toyota. So, I suspect they may have to retreat out of the full sized market in a few seasons and concentrate on where they have traditionally been strong (and the market might actually grow): small pickups.