Toyota had attack plan against congressional testimony, documents show

Source: Washington Post

By Michael D. Shear and Peter Whoriskey

Toyota officials sought to develop a public relations campaign to attack the credibility of key witnesses who have testified before Congress about acceleration problems with the company's cars, according to documents provided to the House committee investigating the automaker.

The effort was based in part on polling conducted for Toyota by Joel Benenson, President Obama's chief pollster. His poll questioned the integrity of the witnesses: Sean Kane, a Massachusetts safety consultant, and David Gilbert, an auto technology professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Congressional investigators have demanded to know from company officials whether a campaign to debunk or discredit their witnesses was put into action.

The company says it never produced advertisements based on the polling. Still, plans for the campaign have drawn the ire of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which, upon learning of them, told the automaker to hand over all related documents.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/14/AR2010051405390.htmlw

Evidence all shows this company had a mission to deceive the public and their buyers.

:shrug:

.........this in just a little better way, they could have saved themselves a ton of money AND headaches AND sales in the future. You have to wonder about all these so called "genius's" that head companies like this and BP & Massey. In today's fast paced information access, you at the very least HAVE to look like you are interested and concerned. They fucked up, and they will pay for a long time.

Every corporation creates disaster repair plans, and Toyota was no different.

Hell, politicians running for office create similar plans, and rarely use them.

They didn't run the ads. They did smear the 2 individuals! Do you need a link???

OS

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gVx8jkXxnEQ0kFwrCxkdpg3Yt64wD9FNGFC00

Report: Toyota sought to discredit witnesses

(AP) – 2 days ago

NEW YORK — Toyota officials were looking to attack the credibility of witnesses who testified before Congress about sudden acceleration problems in the automaker's vehicles, according to a report in Washington Post.

The Post says it obtained documents that show Toyota sought to create a public relations campaign based in part on polling that questioned the integrity of two witnesses. Such polls are used by businesses and politicians to test the weaknesses of their opponents.

The Post identifies the witnesses as Sean Kane, a Massachusetts safety consultant, and David Gilbert, an auto technology professor. Each criticized Toyota's handling of the problem.

In response, Toyota told the Post it never produced advertisements based on the polling.

From my experience, most do it.
Whether it is a barnstorming, idea making open forum, a young, aggressive, inexperienced go getter who misses the big picture, or, something completely different, it happens all the time. But note, Toyota did not set the whole gambit into motion. Whether some older wiser person said, wadafa? Or it turned out not to be necessary, we will never know.

In my yute, I recall coming up with crazy ideas for my clients, some of which were adopted.

Heh, I recall reading about a WW2 Brit, who then ended up writing fiction, who was a brainstormed for the UK, most of his ideas were crackpot, but he also came up with some at worked, and worked well.

Cousin Vinny. We have common ground. :-)