eROI Days Email Agency

“Woman Sues Toyota Over ‘Terrifying’ Prank” was the ABC News headline that caught the eye of one of eROI’s developers and the article quickly circulated around the office.  The article stated that Amber Duick was suing Toyota for $10 million over emails that supposedly made her believe that she was being stalked.  The campaign in question was for Toyota’s Matrix car.  The emails, intended for “men under 35 who hate advertising,” was a series of emails “from” a fictitious English man on the run from cops claiming to need to stay at the recipients house.  Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency responsible for the ads, even created a fake MySpace page for the fugitive.  The campaign was well executed, funny, creative and buzz worthy and the lawsuit only adds to the hype around the emails.

It seems there are a couple things that don’t line up with the lawsuit.  First of all, the lawyers who represent Toyota asserted that there was a confirmed opt-in process that Duick admitted that she committed to at the initial outset of the series of Toyota campaign emails that she received.   The article didn’t mention whether or not there was an unsubscribe link and physical address in each email (CAN-Spam compliance), as Toyota  and Saatchi & Saatchi may have taken the position that those elements in the email would have detracted from the authenticity of this fake campaign (not sure I’ve ever written “authenticity and fake” in the same sentence where it actually kind of made sense).

If there was an easy opt-out on each and every email, which would make you think either this is the most privacy concerned criminal ever encountered, then there isn’t even a glimmer of hope that Duick could win her case.  As is, Toyota has an overwhelmingly solid legal argument based on her written consent in opt-in.

What could have been done differently?

Obviously a neurotic Los Angeles woman wasn’t their target audience, so how could she have been engaged while not being “terrified?”  List segmentation could have been used to “check in” on consumers not fitting the targeted demographic.  Toyota could have even segmented women from men and had an extra question or check in to make sure their campaign would be received with the appropriate response.  Another idea would be to just make the product a little more blatantly obvious so you know you are interacting with a brand but you are still having fun.  Finding a balance between really creative and fun with responsible marketing is key.