Toyota to be sued for cyberstalking ad campaign

[Xema]

This seems a bizarre story:

Amber Duick sued Toyota in 2009 over its intrusive “Your Other You” campaign, after she began receiving frightening e-mails over a number of days from a strange man. The man, who had her home address, told her he was on the lam from the law and needed to crash at her place for a bit to hide out with his pit bull, Trigger…

Duick freaked out over the e-mails before she received a message directing her to a video explaining she’d been punked by Toyota. The video explained that Bowler was a fictional character, and the whole thing had been an elaborate prank — part of an ad campaign for Toyota’s Matrix car.

Unknown to Duick, someone had signed her up for the campaign at YourOtherYou.com, a web site set up for the prank. The campaign was aimed at 20-something males because the company’s advertising firm, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, determined that the demographic loves to punk their friends.

Ads in print, online and on billboards drove traffic to the YourOtherYou web site where people could enter the name and details of someone they wanted to punk with the campaign. The person could choose one of five fictional characters – among them a heavy metal fanatic and a soccer hooligan — who would barrage the designated friend with text messages, phone calls, e-mails and videos for five days.

What could possibly lead anyone to believe this could end well?

[ZipperJJ]

Wow, what a colossally bad idea!!

[kayaker]

My gf is in advertising. She is always telling me about agencies trying to be edgy. The latest was an online douche (?IIRC) ad that had talking vaginas.

[Bricker]

Bad idea on the ad agency’s part, but nothing in that story makes me think she’s suffered anywhere close to $10 million worth of damage.

[kayaker]

@Bricker

Bad idea on the ad agency’s part, but nothing in that story makes me think she’s suffered anywhere close to $10 million worth of damage.

Maybe she is going after 10, figuring she’d be satisfied with 9.75.

[Derleth]

@Bricker

Bad idea on the ad agency’s part, but nothing in that story makes me think she’s suffered anywhere close to $10 million worth of damage.

Fear of lawsuits is what corporations have instead of a sense of morality. Therefore, to be effective, a lawsuit must be painful enough to prevent the behavior from reoccurring. The only way we’re allowed to do this, as public flogging of those responsible would in some sense pierce the veil, is large monetary penalties.

[madmonk28]

You just know that there was someone at meetings trying to convince their bosses that this was a bad idea and that this person is now stuck with helping clean up this mess.

[Marley23]

@kayaker

The latest was an online douche (?IIRC) ad that had talking vaginas.

Summer’s Eve, and it’s a major campaign. I don’t know if the ads are working, but they’re getting laughed at for the whole vagina hand puppet thing AND criticized for the stereotypical elements in their Latina-directed ad. Other than that, everybody loves it. And yes, the Toyota ad sounds horrendous.

[Xema]

This part caught my eye:

Saatchi & Saatchi made sure the deception was complete by going so far as to create online personas for the fictional characters, including a band web page for the heavy metal fanatic. The agency even recorded an album for the fictional character’s fictional band.

“Even when you get several stages in, it’s still looking pretty real,” Saatchi creative director Alex Flint said about the campaign in 2008. “I think even the most cynical, anti-advertising guy will appreciate the depth and length to which we’ve gone.”

Though this ad campaign was obviously complex and carefully crafted, I’m not sure “appreciate” is the right word here.

[Maggie_the_Ocelot]

Heh. I have a friend who works at Saachi & Saachi. Gonna have to ask her about this.

[Little_Nemo]

@Bricker

Bad idea on the ad agency’s part, but nothing in that story makes me think she’s suffered anywhere close to $10 million worth of damage.

Punitive damages makes companies avoid Pinto accounting.

[Foggy]

@Little_Nemo

[snip]…Pinto accounting.

Googling didn’t help, just a list of companies.

[MPB_in_Salt_Lake]

@kayaker

The latest was an online douche (?IIRC) ad that had talking vaginas.

It’s nice to see that Andy Dick finally had a role created expressly for him…

[Joey_P]

@madmonk28

You just know that there was someone at meetings trying to convince their bosses that this was a bad idea and that this person is now stuck with helping clean up this mess.

So you’re thinking the meeting went something like this? (kinda NSFW)

[Folly]

@Foggy

Googling didn’t help, just a list of companies.

Try “ford pinto memo”

[drewtwo99]

Ever since the Orangina furry commercials, nothing in the advertising world suprises me anymore.

Honestly, if there was a commercial involving 80 year old women having hardcore S&M sex with goats on an airplane in a commercial for tupperware, I would not be surprised.

[Dr.Drake]

@drewtwo99

Ever since the Orangina furry commercials, nothing in the advertising world suprises me anymore.

Honestly, if there was a commercial involving 80 year old women having hardcore S&M sex with goats on an airplane in a commercial for tupperware, I would not be surprised.

Hey, you’ve got to have something to store your goat semen in until you can get back to the farm and impregnate the nannies. I agree the airplane is a bit over the top, though.

[drewtwo99]

@Dr.Drake

Hey, you’ve got to have something to store your goat semen in until you can get back to the farm and impregnate the nannies. I agree the airplane is a bit over the top, though.

I was hoping that the most shocking part of my example was the fact that the advertisement was for tupperware, a brand name that is nearly ubiquitous, but for which I cannot ever recall having seen an advertisement.

[Little_Nemo]

@Foggy

Googling didn’t help, just a list of companies.

The Ford company produced the Pinto model back in the seventies. Ford became aware that the Pinto had a serious design flaw with gas tanks which could cause the car to catch fire in a relatively minor accident.

Ford did a study of the flaw and concluded that fixing the problem would cost $137,500,000. But if they didn’t fix the problem they would be sued by Pinto owners who were killed or seriously injured in fires. However accountants estimated that the cost of these lawsuits would be $49,500,000.

So Ford decided it was cheaper to let their customers die than to fix the problem. They kept selling the flawed Pintos for another eight years after this study was made.

[Toucanna]

@drewtwo99

I was hoping that the most shocking part of my example was the fact that the advertisement was for tupperware, a brand name that is nearly ubiquitous, but for which I cannot ever recall having seen an advertisement.

I agree. That kind of ad just screams “Rubbermaid”.