Saatchi Sued Over "Terror Marketing Campaign" for Toyota
A California woman has sued Saatchi & Saatchi for an offbeat PR campaign for Toyota in which, she alleges, she was terrorized by a fictional English football hooligan who insisted — via email — that he was going to show up at her house with his pitbull and crash on her sofa while he avoided the police.
The stream of emails to Amber Duik eventually ended with a reveal in an online video, per Courthouse News:
Eventually an actor in the “movie” revealed that the entire ordeal was a hoax, and that Duik had been “punked” by Toyota as part of a marketing campaign for its Matrix automobile.
The character, Sebastian Bowler, even has a MySpace page, Duik alleges. She claims she was “constantly in tears and shaking and sobbing in emotional distress” during his communications, which she described as a “terror marketing campaign.” The emails began:
The first message said: “Amber Mate. Coming to Los Angeles. Gonna lay low at your place for a bit. Till it all blows over. Bringing Trigger.”
The second message included Duik’s address, followed by the comment, “Looks all right mate! Nice place to hide out. We don’t need much though. Just a couch and a telly. Trigger don’t throw up much anymore, but put some newspaper down in case.”
This was followed by messages in which Bowler described trashing a hotel room and run-ins with police.
The final message stated: “Amber Mate. Had a brush with the law last night. Anyway, hopefully I will have lost them by the time I get to your place. Can’t wait to see you.”
Saatchi did indeed run a prank-style campaign, titled “Your Other You,” in which consumers could sign up their friends to be the subject of hoaxes that ended with an ad for the Toyota Matrix. Jalopnik describes it here.
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Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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