Toyota Recalls Dominate April's Automotive News and Social Media

London, UK. 10th May 2010: Despite a busy period of financial reporting, Toyota recalls continued to dominate the headlines during the month of April, according to the latest Alva Automotive In Sight Analysis. Each month, corporate reputation analysis company Alva reports on the biggest issues in the Automotive industry in terms of traditional media coverage and social media chatter using information collected from its daily Alva Automotive In Sight service.

Toyota's Sequoia and Lexus GX460 recalls were the single biggest stories of the month, with more than double the impact of hydrogen fuel's fightback in the green car race (in second place) and the sales and financial reporting of Toyota and Ford (third and fourth respectively).

Overall, Toyota also topped the league table of car manufacturers dominating the news and online discussion with a 15% share of overall coverage, followed by Ford with 6% and General Motors with 5%.

The biggest industry issues in the automotive sector were slightly more evenly spread with sales taking 17% of all coverage, while safety and corporate issues each took 16% of the conversation.

"In what is typically a massively important month for sales and financial reporting in the automotive industry, Toyota still managed to dominate the headlines and online discussions. Despite its textbook handling of what were fairly routine recalls this time, the media scrutiny of Toyota means that it continues to be associated with negative product recalls." said Alberto Lopez, CEO of Alva. "These results demonstrate the media and wider industry's continued hunger for this safety story. The implication for Toyota's corporate reputation looks to be severe and long-term and the potential for this negative coverage to contaminate other automotive brands is quite clearly present in the market."

Top 10 Manufacturers by Media and Social Media Chatter in April 2010

Company % Coverage
Toyota  15.12%
Ford    6.64%
General Motors  5.05%
Nissan  2.90%
BMW     2.55%
Volkswagen      1.66%
Lexus   1.45%
Volkswagen      1.45%
Honda   1.33%
Chevrolet       1.21%

Top 10 Issues in April 2010

Issues          Issue Type      Percentage
Toyota Sequoia and Lexus GX460 recalls  Safety
Brand
Sales
Corporate       23
Hydrogen fuel to fight back in green car race?  Sustainability
R&D     10
Toyota rises most in seven weeks after report on profit         Sales
Corporate       10
Ford Q1 profit expected, focus now sustainability  Sales
Corporate       7
AA patrol staff to go on strike over pensions  Employment   6
Toyota pays US record fine, announces Lexus recalls Safety Regulation Sales   4
Toyota issues stop sale on 2010 GX 460  Safety Sales   4
Report: Ford becomes top-selling brand in Europe Sales   3
Ford technology a hit with younger consumers  Quality and Service 3
Petrol prices hit record high   Regulation Sustainability  3

About Alva

Alva specialises in analysing corporate reputation and reputational risk. Its services allow organisations to build reputational risk assessment, and analysis into their day-to day business processes to ensure reputation is managed in the same way as any other valuable business asset.

Alva's services are industry sector specific. Reputation analysis services for the automotive industry are already being delivered with services to the energy and utilities and financial services communities following shortly, with 32 industry sectors planned in total.

Alva's Board of Directors consists of industry experts with extensive first-hand experience in managing reputation at PLC level. Alva Chairman Andrew Vickerman is the former Corporate Affairs Director at Rio Tinto. Serving as Non-Executive Directors are Alan Schofield, Former Press Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Mark Rigby, Director of Corporate Affairs at Sainsbury's PLC.