December 13, 2006
What's a person to do if they desire a PSP and the shopping frenzy that is Christmas is rapidly approaching? Write a letter to Santa? Casually leave store flyers and magazines opened to just the right spot on the kitchen table?Or, perhaps, start a fake viral campaign?
According to a scathing report on VideoGamesBlogger.com, a PR firm called Zipatoni was hired by Sony to create a blog-like advertising website at alliwantforxmasisapsp.com. The site is supposedly run by "charlie & jeremy", who are trying to get Jeremy's folks to buy him a PSP for Christmas:
we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j’s parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!
Zipatoni even used their own company name to register alliwantforxmasisapsp.com. Complete with DIY PSP cutouts with no screen (presumably so you can pretend to play it on the bus?), iron-on T-shirt designs, PSP-themed greeting cards, a poster that says "this is not an ad, it's a reminder", and a rap video about wanting a PSP.
VideoGamesBlogger even alleges that Zipatoni employees posted links to the rap video on Kotaku.com and GamesRadar, in an attempt to generate traffic to the site:
Good call on DJ max. Regarding music: if changes were to be made for westerners, this guy should be considered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJxIWUKM0hQ - LOLZ
This isn't the first time Sony has employed a P.R. firm to fake a grassroots movement of PSP fans. In 2005 Sony paid store owners to allow PSP-themed graffiti on their buildings as part a viral marketing campaign. The stunt insulted gamers and outraged municipal officials.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the FTC would be warning companies about so-called "word-of-mouth" ad campaigns. The government watchdog agency said that such practices could be deceptive if the consumer was led to believe the product recommendation came from an independent 3rd party. The warning wasn't in direct response to the PSP campaign, but follows a rise in popularity of the marketing gimmick amongst advertisers.
- Wanting nothing for Xmas but a stop to all the annoying ad campaigns, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes
Comments
Wasn't there a game company who were doing crazy advertisement stuff? I remember reading about it...like, one was they'd pay someone to have advertisement carved onto their (or, someone from the family) grave headstone; it was in the UK, I know...Acclaim comes to mind, but, I don't remember at all...
Sony duh's it again.
Seriously though... Sony is kind of.. well.. butt-f***'ing themselves with stunts like this. The fact that this site is so incredibly bad and corny just means that even fewer people will want it.
As a friend said, the PSP will probably just go the way of the N-Gage
This just don't cut it.
Sounds like something GoldenPalace.com would pay for.
Disclaimer: I wasn't paid a damn thing to say that. Grrr!
Acclaim did something similar a few years ago, where they paid someone a bunch of cash to legally change their first name to Turok for a year - it was all part of an advertising stunt for "Turok: Dinosaur Hunter".
(paraphrased) "I have a PSP. My friend j wants one for xmas. So we created this blog to spread the word on how great it is...blah blah blah...consider us your unofficial hype machine for the psp...yada yada."
Just now, i re-visited the site (i hadn't finished exploring it earlier, i became rather nauseated) and discovered that the intro now reads:
"Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
Sony Computer Entertainment America
I LOVE this. Not only did they willfully attempt to decieve their target market, and do so poorly, now they're making lame jokes about it and insinuating that they thought the gaming community would be too thick-headed to see through it.
"...funky fresh?" How about not so fresh. Blatantly lying to potential customers is really an idiot move, Sony. Please, just stop the madness and go back to the marketing you used to do. Remember back with the original PlayStation? Your ads were actually clever back then, and i actually wanted one when i saw the ads. All your campaigns have done lately is make me loathe and despise your company as a whole, regardless of what great (and not-so-great) products you might have released.
Between this and the PS3 commercials (crazy baby, anyone?) Sony has horrible marketing.
heres the way to "fix" the PSP Start buy reducing the game prices by 20% then 50% on UDM movies THEN reinvigorate the game line by making games for it.....
Hey, and the baby's a doll. Yeah, I see those commercials, and I still don't quite understand what they're trying to do with them; all it's doing is making me say "Wtf?" Heh, my sister got a bit angry at the one with the eggs, because those are chicken eggs, not crow eggs or whatever those bird were (she's rather picky about that stuff; aiming to be a zoologist).
While this does not make it right (nor wrong), it should be understood as a context in which to frame this debate. After all, those of you who are severely disappointed in Sony, did you REALLY think that this was about your "feelings" and not their legal obligation as corporate officers to MAXIMIZE corporate profit? Get real, buy a Wii.