After a hoax letter turning down a seller of a toy car went viral on twitter, The UK used car buyer quickly set up a microsite for the PR win.
The fake letter
Instead of acting like stupid bullies with "Mr. Jennings" ( @JamieDMJ), the company set up WeBuyAnyToyCar.com, offering to buy the first 100 Tike cars brought to them for £10 a pop. They say they'll then donate the money — up to £1,000 — to charity.
The website copy reads:
This weekend, @jamieDMJ AKA "Adam Jennings" circulated a spoof letter from his twitter account claiming that we had refused to buy his Tike.
In fact, he got so excited about sending a letter to himself that he completely forgot to ask us if we actually wanted the car and guess what – we do!
Now we're not saying we're experts in buying toy cars, but we just can't get enough of those Tikes – their red and yellow bodywork, zero carbon emissions and pedal power just make us happy.
We can't stand the idea of unloved Tikes covered in cobwebs in garages across the UK. So we're staging a Tike amnesty, offering to buy the first 100 Tikes in good working order (must have two doors, a roof, pedals and no floor) that are presented to our branches...
We'll pay a tenner for each one and give the money – £1,000 in total – to road safety charity Brake.
That's just fucking brilliant.
My hope is that the fake letter writer is not associated with WeBuyAnyCar, and that this whole thing was not a set-up. Call me a killjoy, but I've seen worse.
Agency: Democracy PR.
