The One About Toyota, That isn’t About Toyota *

What a crazy story it is. I applaud and appreciate that Toyota addressed the issue so quickly, and while I don’t believe they had any part in this at all now, I still maintain that this post has some relevance and importance for bloggers, brands, and PR.

Mom bloggers receive pitches that look and smell just like this every day, and most of us are used to working with brands through mommy-managed networks, too. The quality here varies, but, I doubt many would have questioned this hitting their inbox. It looked a lot like more Hyundai to me, and after seeing an outbreak of those $20 posts (many not disclosed), a nerve was definitely struck.

Read the crazy, fast-paced event as it happened.

My original update notes:

Note: since posting this, I have received an email from Mommy Networks claiming no affiliation with Toyota. There was no mention of this in the email I received, and I could only assume that this was a campaign on behalf of Toyota or Toyota’s PR (in some, trickle-down capacity, at least). There were no omissions in the email below, what you see below is the full text. Bizarre, yes? See bottom of this post for more on this.

Note 2: A member of Toyota’s SM team emailed me, indicating that they in fact have no affiliation with Mommy Networks, and that they are going to “get to the bottom of this.” They noted that they do not support this type of PR outreach. Thank you Toyota for the response.Again, see bottom of post for further updates.

My original post:

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:)

After the main body of the request, there were attached, GET THIS, 32 links to articles and videos that bloggers are encouraged to rate or give a “thumbs up”. That’s not spreading good news, it is bribing moms to help bury bad press.

Dear Toyota, if you want to recruit mom bloggers to spread some positive news about your brand, then produce some positive news. Show us a new car, a design or technology innovation, show us that you are supporting an amazing charity. Don’t insult us by throwing a $10 Amazon gift card our way, and providing us with a catalog of content to disseminate like a hoard of mom-drones.

I’m not even going to get into the fact that a $10 Amazon gift card for writing a blog post about a huge company, sharing it on your social profiles, and going the extra mile to rate a bunch of videos is absolutely insane.

I have nothing against Tiffany Lewis, and I have no idea how much she was compensated by Toyota to recruit mom bloggers in this scenario. I can only assume it was more than a $10 Amazon gift card.

This whole thing just gives me a really creepy, bad feeling. What do you think?

UPDATE:

Samantha Snyder, owner of Mommy Networks, emailed me saying that she is in no way affiliated with Toyota. I don’t know how someone wakes up one day and decides to pay a bunch of mom bloggers to post good news about a brand out of their own pocket, but, that’s what Snyder says she was doing:

I am a toyota owner, that saw this come out last week and I thought that it would be a good case study. Honestly, look at my FB page. I really thought that I could bring up something as large as this recall and create a portfolio for MommyNetworks.org.

There was absolutely no mention of any of this in her original pitch, and I can only assume that the other bloggers involved were under the impression that there was some affiliation with Toyota, too. Might want to run this stuff by the brand, especially when you’re paying people.

Final note, want to see something really fishy? In the footer of the Mommy Networks site, it said Copyright Care.com Inc. Well, that was until about 15 minutes ago when that was removed from their site. If you would like to see what it looked like before it was mysteriously yanked, you can see the full res cached image here, or view below.

Why were the affiliations to Care.com removed?

Guesses? UPDATE: Oh wait, this settles that:

Here is a tweet from Toyota, thumbs up on that account for sure:

UPDATE: Mommy Networks apology. Bizarre.