Branding experts perplexed over Saatchi chairman Bob Seelert and Toyota's public disagreement

This week, Seelert had said that the leading Japanese automaker should quietly fix its recalled vehicles and resist a reactive marketing campaign that will draw attention to the issue before the brand is re-launched. But Toyota has said that it will continue its regular advertising.

Martin Roll, brand strategist of VentureRepublic and an advisor to many large Asian firms, however disagrees with the manner in which Seelert is publicly discussing the way Toyota should be handling its current crisis.

According to Roll, Seelert’s views are symptomatic of the advertising industry in general, which should not be discussing clients’ business and problems out in the open. He notes that the industry can sometimes be too “ego-centric and publicity-seeking, and forgets the real needs of clients”.

He says: “It’s not going to make things any better for the public and consumers to see that internally they can’t agree. They should be learning from the professionalism of the management consulting world where things are always fixed internally. If anything, the Saatchi & Saatchi chairman should be flying in the best people from his global team to Tokyo now to advise the client.”

According to Joe Baladi of BrandAsian, the branding consultant feels that it is “highly unusual” for such a development to be happening at this point.

He notes: “I would even say it’s unprecedented for an ad agency chief to publicly disagree with a client, especially on such a large and important issue and to do so out of conviction as he appears to be doing.”

Baladi also wonders if there are other circumstances or ulterior motives at play. He adds: “If you give the Saatchi chief the benefit of the doubt, then he deserves qualified praise for the conviction to advise a client not to spend money for his own good, but I’m scratching my head as to why it had to be done publicly.”

“Finally, I only partially agree with his advice. Toyota should temporarily cease all advertising that encourages vehicle sales, but should continue with its ads that apologise and explain what is taking place to rectify the problem," says Baladi.