Toyota did EVERYTHING wrong in this PR outreach

Original post – please see next entry for UPDATE

Holy crap, this is EVERYTHING that is wrong about bad PR outreach. We are not interns, we don’t deceive, and we most certainly do NOT get our panties in a bunch over a ten dollar gift card. WE FEED FAMILIES.

Corollary: if you are going to ask someone to be slimy, at least pay them a decent rate. (But look somewhere else; we are not slimy).

Sorry about the FB double-post but it had to go here too. It’s just too important to ignore.

I must delete two dozen requests a day asking me to promote stuff for free, or review stuff that has nothing to do with my target audience or with me. I work for a living, people, I do not work for free. I have children to support. I am not a mommy sitting at home playing on the Internet while my husband is off supporting me. I don’t have a husband. Or support. Or patience for insults like this one from Toyota. Fortunately, neither do I have enough Twitter followers to have been asked to participate.

Oh, and second lesson? USE BLIND CC. When we all know who else is in the mix, we’ll only be more outspoken when insulting, unscrupulous requests like this are made.

Excerpt from DearCrissy’s post:

Toyota Pays Mom Bloggers $10 to Bury Bad Press
I just received an email that absolutely astounded me, regarding a blogging opportunity from Toyota for mom bloggers. Tell me if this doesn’t just seem wrong on so many levels. Of course, you’ve heard all of the scary news about the Toyota sudden acceleration problem, and I am sure it has been a headache of epic proportions for Toyota.

I’m still picking up the pieces of my broken heart after learning that Toyota Doesn’t Make Cars for Me, and now, this. Toyota wants to give me a $10 Amazon gift card to post some of their recent “positive news” on my blog, Tweet it to my 32,000 Twitter followers, and give a whole slew of their videos an endorsement on YouTube. Seriously, Toyota? I mean, seriously?

This is the email I received, along with several other mom bloggers who were not BCC’d, by the way, from Tiffany Lewis at MommyNetworks.org.

Hello!

A new opportunity! Another chance to score a $10.00 Amazon gift card for the mommy bloggers who help out.

There was a big report released about Toyota, by the NHTSA and NASA, stating that there was no electronic flaw found, which was originally assumed to be the cause of all the recalls with the Priuses last year. It actually turned out to be pretty much “user error” that was causing the accelerator to stick.

It’s a big deal for Toyota since this has affected their reputation heavily and they had a lot of negative stigma around their brand as of late, and we’re helping to spread the positive news:

I need you to:
Write a post about the report & good news
In the post, link to a few of the articles or videos below
If possible, share on social networks or “thumbs up” the YouTube videos.

Tiffany Lewis
MommyNetworks.org

She has one more note, after that:

Please meticulously track your efforts (If you tweet it out, the exact URL) You must do this to recieve the giftcard!!! If you have any questions I will get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great day:)