In 2015, Toyota Canada’s direct marketing efforts — including email, social media, digital display, and direct mail — lacked the precision and personalization needed to maximize effectiveness.

Key challenges included:

• Strategic and creative decisions were not consistently data-driven
• Campaigns were not personalized to individual consumer behavior
• Limited ability to measure and optimize campaign performance
• Fragmented marketing processes across internal teams and external agencies
• Organizational inertia around adopting new, data-centric approaches

Toyota needed a transformation to move from intuition-driven marketing to a fully data-driven, continuously optimized marketing ecosystem.

CVM partnered with JAM Direct to propose a new, data-first approach to Toyota’s marketing efforts — an approach focused on using data to inform decisions, personalize communications, measure results, and continually improve.

Since winning the engagement, CVM and JAM have led the transformation by:

• Developing the Direct Marketing Data and Analytics Strategy
  Defined a roadmap for using data to drive channel selection, creative, timing, and messaging.

• Promoting Data-Driven Decision-Making
  Built dashboards, reporting tools, and analytical frameworks to embed data into Toyota's marketing workflows.

• Driving Personalization at Scale
  Helped Toyota target individual consumers with the right message, at the right time, through the right channel, based on behavioral and demographic insights.

• Championing Test-and-Learn Culture
  Advocated for continuous experimentation, campaign testing, and iterative improvement based on real-world results.

• Facilitating Cross-Stakeholder Collaboration
  Engaged internal teams and agency partners to ensure alignment on KPIs, targeting strategies, and measurement methodologies.

CVM emphasized an incremental delivery model: deliver quick wins, demonstrate value, and build momentum over time.

• Toyota shifted from campaign-based, channel-specific marketing to an integrated, data-driven marketing ecosystem.
• Personalization efforts led to improved customer engagement and campaign performance.
• Marketing strategies became more agile, adaptive, and measurable.
• Toyota’s marketing teams, internal stakeholders, and external agencies now share consistent KPIs and reporting frameworks.
• Established a foundation for future AI and machine learning integrations into marketing activities.

• Data-Driven Transformation Requires Strategy and Execution: Building the tools is important — but building the culture matters even more.
• Stakeholder Engagement is Critical: Involving internal teams and agency partners early and often drives alignment and adoption.
• Small Wins Build Big Change: Starting small and scaling thoughtfully enabled Toyota’s successful transition to data-driven marketing.