Looks Like the Jokes on Toyota
The Auto News calls it Toyota’s terror marketing campaign, and watching the video above I think gives you a pretty good idea of why. This past Monday, September 28th, 2009 marked the beginning of a lawsuit against Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi of Los Angeles for an ad campaign which may have been a little too off the wall for some folks.
The plaintiff, a Mrs. Amber Duick has claimed that the above campaign last year frightened her to the point of sleeping with a hatchet and mace next to her bed. The idea behind the campaign, was to advertise the Toyota Matrix to the young and hip, through a crude practical joke meant to be funny. Duick took it a little to seriously, and thus the reason for the lawsuit.
Actually, a lot of folks took the jokes seriously and felt harassed. Must have sounded like a great idea on paper, but not so much after being slapped with a lawsuit that’s being splashed all over the media.
“The Other You” Ad Campaign
What the campaign entailed was a series of e-mails sent to consumers, triggered by an online personality test, called “The Other You,” friends could send each other. The e-mails featured crazy fictitious characters making zany comments, that some could take as “threats” or harassment. In Mrs. Duick’s case, she was e-mailed by a Brit Sebastian Bowler, who claimed he had just moved to the United States and was looking for a place to stay to avoid the cops with his pet pit bull, Trigger.
E-mails from Brit followed, one after the other, to a total of nine. One email even claimed that he had just left a hotel in which he had damaged several items in the room, and had the bill sent to her house, totaling $78.92. After several sleepless nights, Duick was eventually let off the hook by a final e-mail letting her know that she had just been punkt.
Toyota has yet to comment on the lawsuit, but this would appear to be the last thing they need with a 3.8 million recall topping off an otherwise horrible week!
Source: Auto News
