Slashdot Mirror
Sony-Ericsson Starts US$5M Astroturf Campaign
lairdb writes "The WSJ reports today (31Jul02) that Sony Ericsson will be marketing their new T68i cellphone/camera combo unit via "shills" to create a grassroots buzz. Specific tactics will include fake tourist couples at popular attractions asking bystanders to take their picture, and "leaners": pairs of women ("actresses and female models") at bars playing interactive Battleship with each other from opposite ends of the bar.
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]""
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
Never mind telling the world via WSJ
damn these foul charades.
eat people not animals
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
And I just stole one of those babies from these old tourists today so I could go play Battleship with these hot chicks I met at the bar last night.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
I've got one, and it's great. You can even take pictures with it! Or play wireless games with other T68i owners. I wouldn't want to be the last person to get one of these...
...specific tactics will include fake tourist couples at popular attractions asking bystanders to take their picture...
/me runs off with the phone.
Me: "Sure, folks, I'll take your picture. Move back towards the fountain."
Tourists (moving back): "How's this?"
Me: "No, no, a little farther back."
Tourists (moving back again): "Better?"
Me: "Hey, I know! Why don't you take off your shoes and stand *in* the fountain?"
Tourists: "Umm.... okay."
(Tourists take off shoes and socks and wade into fountain.)
Tourists: "Okay, how's this?"
~Philly
HAHA! Ignore all the claims to the contrary...I have this phone and it's GREAT! it has totally fulfilled all my cellular phone expectations...not to mention that I am now a funnier and more popular person. also I am better looking.
/. "joes" like myself...and believe me, you might even just want to send some extra free money to ericsson after you see how good it is.
you should TOTALLY try out this phone. I mean, yeah, you could listen to the "marketroids" (haha!!! lingo!) or you could just take the word of regular
your average slashdotter,
sean
ps I CERTAINLY don't work for ericsson...haha!
pps did you notice I wrote "/." instead of "slashdot"? I am SO clearly one of you guys
Sony will stop their shills campain faster than you can say, "DRM can suck my n\/ts cause I'm running Linux".
I can see it now... www.LeanerSpotting.com
Screw pickpockets. Enterprising Slashdotters.
"Hi, glad you made it out here tonight. Ya look great. OK, here's the deal. The guy at headquarters says I'm supposed to pretend to steal the camera from you - you run after me for about half a block. Then when you're convincingly out of breath, you can tell everyone who's followed you or gathered around you what a wonderful brand-new camera you just had stolen from you..."
Great. Now when we go to DEFCON we're gonna be surrounded by lamers with T-shirts saying "I spotted the Sony/Ericsson Shill!".
(Or worse, if you're female and attend DEFCON with another female and just wanna play one lousy game of Corewars on your cellphones, your table will be covered in dozens of T-shirts saying "I am the Sony/Ericsson Shill!" :)
The western world's economy is based on selling thneeds. After all, everybody needs a thneed, right? If nobody needed a thneed, then the western economy will collapse. So be patriotic-- buy every thneed you can get your hands on. You'll wonder how you ever lived your life without them.
[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]""
:)
For example, they explained their marketing campaign to the Wall Street Journal, an internationally distributed newspaper with a daily circulation of 1,943,601, and gave said paper specific examples of the kinds of things that their actors will be doing. Then, once this paper prints an article on it, it gets posted to slashdot.org, a heavily accessed website frequented by virtually everyone in the target group of wierdass technology toys like a digital camera/cellphone allinone.
Sony, you are brilliant. No one will ever suspect the details of your devious plan. They will think all those shills are real people. Sony: international troll of mystery! If only Microsoft were this good at keeping its secrets from the public, Security though Obscurity might actually work.
---
Now that i have the blatant, boring cynical sarcasm over with, i have to say this for them: well, their campaign sure worked! In that, it was successful in one thing: i heard about it. So did you. So did everyone in this forum. Everyone here may know Sony was using dubious marketing practices, but they also know that Sony is selling a cell phone that doubles as a digital camera. Which, now that i think about it, is fucking cool. I want one.
...were it Microsoft doing something similar you'd be raising all kind of hell.
Nah. We'd just beat to a bloody pulp anyone in Fry's or CompUSA holding a boxed copy of winXP.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
...then I don't care if they're shills or not. Attractive women who "like" discussing technology - even the illusion would be damn cool. Now if only I were old enough to visit bars - wait! Canada! Woohoo!
I'm the stranger...posting to
I mean, come on. How about a straightforward demo of the damn things?
At MacWorld 2 weeks ago, these things were all over the place so people could demo Apple's new iSync software. There was no subterfuge, it was, "Here's the phone, try it out for yourself." And it worked. I want one.
Why do they deem it necessary to stoop to all this sneaky shit? If the product is good, people will want it without some fucking Jedi Mind Trick-style advertising campaign.
Ah, and the obligatory Simpsons quote:
Moe: "Hi, uh, could I buy you a drink?"
Cute Girl in Bar: "Sure! How about a Bacardi Cooler?"
M: "Uh.. ok."
CGiB: "Or even a Bacardi Rita? Because Bacardi makes the night come alive... with freshness!"
M: "What, do you work for Bacardi?"
CGiB: "No, I'm in love with you."
CGiB slaps a "Drink Rum" sticker on Moe's forehead
There's the IMEI number that can be used to block GSMs. I figure they won't forget to write that down?!
For your average /.'er, the girls at the bar should be easy to spot. General rule, if a good looking girl at a bar shows even the slightest bit of interest in you, then they MUST be getting paid (one way or another), and you'd be best to avoid them and go back to playing with your Palm in the back corner.
'So, how much does Sony pay you for this?'
I am a science fantasy fan
"Baby, you can quit right now. You've sunk me already."
BEFORE everyone goes to the Ericsson job site and slashdots it, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that there are currently three jobs available: two in the Netherlands and one in Nigeria. Alas, I don't believe any of them involve walking around pretending to be tourists while getting paid.
Sorry to burst your bubble.IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Right! I'm a shill for porn companies! I don't actually like downloading the
Just as long as my wife doesn't catch me demonstrating...
On a related tangent, who did this first? I'm an Apple guy, so I'd like to think that Guy Kawasaki innovated the form, but maybe Apple just stole the concept from someplace?
--
$tar -xvf
Erricson Chick: Hi will you take a photo of me and my girlfriend with my new phone? .45 pistol with tungsten slide........
Coors Guy: Sure! Here hold my refreshing coors lite while I do it!
Miller guy: Hey watch the elbows buddy! I nearly dropped my Miller! Its full of beer goodness godamnit!
GM Chick: Hey who's new Sierra is that out front?
Coke Chick: Who cares, does this bikini make me look fat, I've been drinking diet coke all week!
GM Chick: Shutup!
Toshiba Guy: Girls dont fight! Here lets play some games on this NEW Toshiba laptop!
Colt Guy: Everyone FREEZE! This is a stickup! Notice i'm holding the new Colt
Insert something insightful here, or I'll insert something painful there.
Fake tourists in the streets, fake drinkers in the bar, to create a "grassroot buzz"...
Wait, isn't that just what this article is doing ? now thousands of Slashdotters are aware this phone exists, thinking they got the info from public buzz, not through an ad.
Gosh...what if the whole bunch of you were Sony/Ericsson actors pulling a PR stunt on me ? What if all this whas just a setup ? What is real, what is conspiracy ?
If I see my wife telling me she would like to play battleship with me, or or asking me to take pictures with a phone, I think I'll just open the door and run in the street screaming "The invasion has begun !! Ericsson PR are among us, they're replacing real people !!"
Then, the aliens would get me and i'd end up in a bar playing battleship, or in a street, asking people to take pictures of me.
She: "Hi, I'm a cute girl who doesn't work for any major multinational corperation and I'm just playing around with my super cool camera phone!"
Me: "Wow, that IS cool... Of course my year-old j-phone I got in osaka also takes digital pictures, sends email, plays games, and even can access the internet. Here want to look up the spec's on google? Use my phone. Oh, and it cost me about $50 when I got it new, and it's smaller and lighter than your phone by orders of magnitude and generally can run two or three weeks before it needs to be recharged (which takes about an hour)... Oh, wait, what were you saying again?"
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Yeah, I heard most airlines do that, but not United. I know for a fact that most airlines try to mislead their customers by putting a forged "good word" out about how good their food is or how comfortable their seats are but definately not United. United Airlines has a rich history of community support that goes back nearly 70 years. Would you really expect a company with a 70 year history of rich community support to try to mislead their customers? Absolutely not.
I'm a minister!
Most of you people will dismiss this because it's coming from Sony, but were it Microsoft doing something similar you'd be raising all kind of hell.
Probably because whem Microsoft tries to stick models with their software, it tends to look really stupid. (as shown here)
How convincing would it really be to have an average slashdotter outrunning two or three physically fit supermodel actors/actresses?
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
Why am I now picturing a scene from 'John Carpenter's The Thing' but instead of grizzly scientists in arctic parkas I see a circle of cellphone wielding models suspiciously eyeing each other...
"I don't know which of you to trust..."
"I know *I* am not a leaner..."
"I don't care what you say... any of you moves I shoot..."
"I saw Tiffany go outside with Barbi alone. If Barbi is a leaner, then Tiffany might be one too now..."
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat