If there's one thing that Francois Loubser has learnt in nearly 40 years of advertising and marketing, it's that when times are tough, you advertise more.
At many companies, the first thing to be cut when sales and profits are under pressure is the marketing budget. That's precisely the wrong thing to do, he says. "In fact, you should go harder." When Loubser rejoined Toyota SA in 1978 to manage its communications and research, the motor company's MD was Colin Adcock, a former advertising industry figure. It was the marketing and brand groundwork that Adcock laid then, says Loubser, that has kept Toyota SA's market leader ever since.
Loubser (61) has just retired as Toyota's marketing vice-president. His time at the company spans almost the entire SA television era. He was first employed at Toyota in 1969 but left in 1976 for two years to gain experience elsewhere. In his career, he has overseen 160 TV and cinema advertising campaigns.
He is a former judge of the Loeries advertising industry awards, remains vice-chairman of the SA Advertising Research Foundation and is a member of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) appeals committee.
During his time at Toyota, Loubser has dealt with a single advertising agency. FCB, formerly Lindsay Smithers, has been with the company for 41 years. Toyota's advertising during this period has been a reflection of both Loubser and FCB: safe and reliable (some would say conservative), with occasional flashes of brilliance. There have been advertising awards but that is not what drives Toyota advertising. "We want campaigns to sell products, move metal and underpin the brand," says Loubser. "Some people think that if you don't win awards, you don't do good ads. We may be less adventurous than some but we have been number one in the market for over a quarter of a century."
Toyota advertising has always set out to be "friendly, warm, and with humour if we can. And it has to be strongly South African." That's why Toyota has resisted the trend adopted by many other motor companies, of importing international campaigns. "I think it's an insult to customers to show a left-hand-drive car. It shows you are lazy. The secret of successful advertising is to make it relevant to the purchaser."
Still, there are times when Loubser has thought it might be easier to follow the trend. The Western Cape has become a popular filming destination for overseas advertising agencies. So much foreign work has come in that some Cape Town studios have tried demanding international prices from local clients. "That's plain wrong," says Loubser. "SA companies grew the local filming industry and now they want to price us out." At one stage, Toyota investigated shooting ads in Hong Kong and Australia.
Does Loubser have some favourite Toyota campaigns? Most are for the Hilux bakkie - a fact that has sometimes bemused Japanese colleagues, who wonder at big-budget productions on a vehicle they consider a workhorse. Memorable moments include model Josie Boraine fighting a male driver to cross a river, a Hilux chasing a bull, and a series of computer-generated ads featuring pigs and chickens. The pigs ad was pulled after complaints from Muslims, while concerns about the safety of the chickens ended with Toyota adding a tongue-in-cheek line that no animals had been hurt during the filming.
Some ads have not been straightforward. During filming of an early Cressida campaign, two cars were washed off a pinnacle rock in Hout Bay. And former world rally champion Ove Andersson nearly came a serious cropper when driving a Corona into the loading bay of a taxi-ing aircraft.
A couple of campaigns simply failed, like the attempt to move Corolla up-market and an ad for the Hi-Ace minibus featuring dancing girls. Failures, though, have been rare. Loubser believes in pre-flighting market research. Some ad agencies argue this deters creativity but Toyota wants to know in advance that its campaigns will work.
Loubser has also been anxious to avoid campaigns being referred to the ASA. He admits that some complaints are just plain silly - "people look for things to object to; they take things too seriously" - but "my philosophy is that you should avoid the ASA. It takes up unnecessary time and cost."
Loubser will continue to do some work for Toyota but also hopes to broaden into independent consultancy and market analysis.
