Sony…Haven’t You Learned?
So we all know that Sony, and their agency Zipatoni, made the shockingly ridiculous move of creating a fake blog for the new PSP. Seriously, shouldn’t they know that you can’t do that by now? Anyway, Sony at least fessed up and admitted to it quick, which is more than can be said for some companies. (cough, cough..walmart, cough…)
Here’s the post:
"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"
While I do appreciate their quick reply, I still think it’s just a little too flippant. Ok, Sony, you’re a major conglomerate, with an already ethically questionable past. We know. So, next time, try not to be so "too cool for school" with that pathetic attempt at speaking "our" language. Who wrote that, really?
A more meaningful apology would have come from your CEO or CMO expressing how truly sorry you are, not a poor attempt at a joke, like some kid begging to be popular. It’s just sad.
And, just to make your head completely explode, they took down all previous comments, and shut off any ability to post new ones. Now that’s transparency and authenticity!
Now, Zipatoni go sit in the corner with Edelman. You guys are in time-out!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I like Jaffe’s comment… Advertisers don’t do "snarky" well.
Love the idea to block comments. You can almost see the meeting that took place:Clueless Marketing Exec Who Happens to Be the Smartest Guy There: Guys I don’t think the bloggers are buying this, I think we should come clean.Total Idiot Marketing Exec That Acts Like He Has a Clue: Obviously what we need to do is troll MySpace and cut and paste some appropriate user comments. That will give Charlie and Pete that ‘authentic feel’ that bloggers are looking for, and respond to.Media-Unsavvy Business Exec That Wishes He’d Stayed With P&G: I say we just delete the weblog, whatever you kids call it and lets go back to the stealth graffiti thingie, I still say that has legs.Smartest Guy There: Look we can’t just delete it, especially since we keep hearing reports that bloggers can track such moves.Smug Marketing Idiot: Exactly. So obviously what we need to do is go in and edit all the comments so that the bloggers are actually saying great things about us, and show that they are really being drawn into the story that Charlie and Pete are telling. Once some bloggers see that others are positively responding to the message we are sending, they will follow Charlie and Pete’s lead, and buy a PSP!Smartest Non-Idiot: Hmmm…..well that’s a possibility, but wouldn’t someone be able to track that as well? What if someone has written down the previous comments? They could retype them on their own blogs!Media-Unsavvy Bored Guy: This is why we never should have dropped door-to-door, a good salesman can con anyone out of…..Smarmy Marketing Exec: Wait! Let’s just fess up, then BLOCK all comments! That way we’ll leave a pseudo admission of guilt, then the readers will see that no one responds, and think that everyone accepts that the blog was just a joke and move on. Closest Thing to Smart Guy There: Has potential. That way we ENSURE that there will NOT be a backlash against us, because if we REMOVE the ability for readers to complain on OUR blog, then they can’t! Brilliant!
Nevermind….I hate comments left by smartass idiots that don’t know that Wordpress butchers the ‘conversation format’.
Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. I thought it was a decent little campaign. I don’t think they set out to fool anyone, yet everyone is up in arms about it. They aren’t the first company to do this. Hell, I developed the concept for one for another company (granted, we made it overtly transparent that it was marketing, but we still set it up as a ficticious person writing a blog… we even had a MySpace page).I liked the Sony videos. Funny stuff.
[...] It’s looking less and less like a Merry Christmas for Sony Executives. After suffering from shortfalls on their PS3 and being caught red handed trying to pull off a flog, they now have to worry about an upcoming price war with the Nintendo Wii. Already the Wii has proved to be popular beyond anybody’s expectations, but a price cut would be a knife to the heart for Sony’s PS3 plans. It’s unique game control has made it the must have gift of the season and already it’s next to impossible to find. [...]
Sony was the one who for several months a few years ago had a fake film critic giving rave reviews for all their movies until they were found out. Again, they said ‘oops’.
Mack- I totally forgot to comment on this! Ahh, I suck, but that was hilarious. And, I bet you weren’t too far from the truth.
Nicnac- They just don’t get it. And I’ll bet they just keep right on doing the same damn thing, too.Poploser- the transparency thing is the big difference. If they were transparent, honest and truthful with their customers, there wouldn’t have been a problem.
Cool Article. I like your site
The article was written better than my blogs.
great post, what a move creating a fake blog.
Great article. keep it up!
Jerry Koh
http://bestmarketingvideos.blogspot.com/
i dont believe it!
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Sony execs have their heads so far up their ass they wouldn’t know how to properly market a product to save their life.
Worst of all is their redonkulous DRM policies.
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