• The Next Web, Monday, February 6, 2012 12:25 PM

Flag on the field! The call: unnecessary spamming. The offending team: Toyota. For Super Bowl XLVI, the game’s title sponsor created an array of Twitter accounts, which it used to essentially spam users about its “Camry Effect a Friend’ Giveaway!” The Next Web's West Coast Editor Drew Olanoff called it “probably the worst Twitter promotion I’ve seen on the platform since the company launched in 2006.”

The worst part, he sad, was that they were all verified accounts, so while Twitter wasn’t involved in the promotion, someone at the microblogging service was clearly involved. Toyota, meanwhile, is now well aware that its promotion crossed the line. “We apologize to anyone in the Twitterverse who received an unwanted @reply over the past few days,” Kimberley Gardiner, National Digital Marketing & Social Media Manager, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc., explained in a statement.

“We were excited to share the message of our Camry Effect campaign in a new way and it was never our intention to displease anyone.” Added Gardiner: “We’ve certainly learned from this experience and have suspended the accounts effective immediately to avoid any additional issues.”

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