Although Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) has created specific marketing companies to help it stir up more consumer interest in vehicle purchases in the U.S., the world's largest automobile company now wants to spend as much as $1 billion in the fourth quarter of this year to bump up sales as much as possible.

Not only that, but the auto company is adding two more hybrid Prius models and is enhancing the margins its dealers receive. Will all of this add up to a large rise in Q4 sales for the automaker? As signs continue to sprout up that the economic recession is nearing an end, customers may start flocking to non-U.S. cars in Q4 now that the "Cash for Clunkers" parade has ended gas efficiency continues to top of the lists of customers shopping for a new car this fall and winter.

Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE: TM) indicated today that it will create two separate marketing companies to ensure the world knows even more about the cars and trucks it produces. One of the companies will focus on the U.S. market, while the other will look at the global arena outside the U.S. Both companies will light up operations at the first of next year, but possibly by the end of this year.

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) is breaking new ground in marketing for its kitchy Scion xB, the Frigidaire on wheels. To focus narrowly on their target market of male trendsetters 18-35, (and perhaps to protect the brand from boomers) they are ignoring television and newspaper in favor of online marketing. The new campaign will run on web sites favored by the young and affluent and its own site, want2bsquare.com, as well as in movie trailers and enthusiast magazines.

The company has done well to date with a design that seemed intentionally designed to offend the conventional aesthetic. However, according to J.D. Power, only 43% of purchasers fit their target demographic, while 15% are boomers. A similar but larger and more upscale product from Honda, the Element, has seen the same trend: only 28% of Element owners are 35 or under.

While Toyota should be happy with the sales figures to date, they seem concerned that they might lose control of the brand. Advertising can only go so far in protecting a brand such as this, cultivated to represent youth, adventure, and individuality. If enough boomers, who also still want to think of themselves as young, adventurous, and unique, are seen behind the wheel, public perception will overwhelm marketing. The Scion brand will come to represent blue-hairs, killing its appeal to younger drivers.

Thus, the company is pinched between corporate desire to maintain a youthful brand and the dealer's incentive to sell every car possible to whoever has the money. Can Toyota succeed in keeping boomers from finding about (and desiring) the xB? I doubt it very much.