Online Effort for Matrix Had Woman Afraid for Her Life
Toyota Motor Sales USA and its ad agency of record, Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, engaged in a bizarre, online "terror marketing campaign" that frightened and harassed thousands of consumers via e-mails, according to a lawsuit filed Sept. 28 in Los Angeles.
The suit claims the online effort, dreamed up by Saatchi to create buzz for the youth-targeted Toyota Matrix, involved a series of e-mails last year to plaintiff Amber Duick from the fictitious Brit Sebastian Bowler, who had moved to the U.S.
Mr. Bowler's digital missives to Ms. Duick indicated he knew her, knew her address and was coming with his pit bull, Trigger, to stay with her to avoid the cops. In his second e-mail to her, Mr. Bowler listed his MySpace page, which is still up (although it says he last logged in June 2008). His video and pictures on MySpace "depict Mr. Bowler as a fanatical English soccer fan who enjoyed drinking alcohol to excess," the suit says. His MySpace page also shows a photo with an arrow pointing to "me" and the caption "my mate took this photo which shows me right before the riot."
One of the nine e-mails to Ms. Duick, the suit alleges, was a bill for $78.92 from a motel for Mr. Bowler's one-night stay there, plus damage to a TV set and picture frame. He had listed her as a reference and told the motel to send her the bill, the complaint says.
"My client was terrified," said her Los Angeles attorney Nicholas Tepper. "She slept with a machete next to her bed and she slept with mace. She could barely sleep or eat normally."
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