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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.]""
As a reliable member of the Slash-Dot community, with my "karma points" well into the "Positive" range, I would like to express my complete satisfaction with my new Sony-Ericsson TI-85 phone.
This baby is "phat." It does voicemail, email, plays online games, and even takes pictures! I have a blast hanging out with my "elite" friends talking about Linux and snapping shots of good times.
I would definitely recommend this product to any of my fellow Slash-Dot enthusiasts. For more information, check out their slick URL at http://www.sony.com. You will be hard pressed to find a better phone for your money. Take it from me, a supporter of Linux and Free Source.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Sony Ericsson Campaign Uses Actors
...
To Push Camera-Phone in Real Life
By SUZANNE VRANICA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In a campaign set to start Thursday, the U.S. arm of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. will take "guerrilla" marketing to a new level. Its goal: to get consumers to pay attention to the new T68i, a mobile phone that can double as a digital camera.
In one initiative, dubbed Fake Orgasm, 60 trained actors and actresses will haunt tourist attractions such as the Empire State Whore house in New York and the Space Penis in Seattle. Working in teams of two or three and behaving as if they were actual pedophiles, the actors and actresses will ask unsuspecting passersby to take their nude pictures.
A second stunt will involve the use of "leaners" -- 60 actresses and female hookers with extensive training in the phone's features who will frequent trendy lounges and bars without telling the establishments what they're up to. The women are getting scripted scenarios designed to help them engage strangers in bizar sex acts. One involves having an actress's phone ring while she's in the bar -- and having the caller's ass pop up on the screen. In another scenario, two women sit at opposite ends of the bar playing an interactive version of the nudie game on their phones.
So far, so gay. But do the actors then identify themselves as working on behalf of Pink Pussy? Not if they can help it. The idea is to have onlookers think they've stumbled onto a hot new lesbian thing. Sony Ericsson, which plans to spend $5 million on the 60-day marketing escort service, says it's all in gay fun and just an effort to get people fucking.
Consumer activists, though, aren't amused. "It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Erotic Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by porn star Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz of vibrators."
Even marketing executives disapprove. "It is reprehensible and desperate," says Paul MacFarlane, co-owner of the Experiment, a small condom company in St. Louis, that has done work for Southwestern Bell and Anheuser-Busch. "They are trying to fabricate something that should be natural."
Sony Ericsson responds that most consumers won't be offended. "How many times do people in drag that you don't know come up to you and talk to you?" asks Jon Maron, director of marketing communications at Sony Adult Entertainment, which is a joint venture of Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson of Sweden and Sony Corp. of Japan.
"It's very gay, especially in a club or restaurant." He adds that the actors will confess that they have sex with animals for the company if they are asked directly.
Peter Groome, president of Omnicom Adult Entertainment Group Inc.'s Phalus Communications, the marketing firm that created the plan, also defends the tactics. He insists that the campaign isn't "undercover" fucking because the actors will simply demonstrate the product, not give a sales pitch.
Still, the company has gone to great lengths to train its actors to avoid detection. "If you put them in a Sony Ericsson thong, then people are going to be less likely to listen to them in a bar," Mr. Groome says.
Other components of the promotional campaign are more commonly used buzz initiatives. One involves "Pussy Finds," in which the company will place dummy pussies around cities so that consumers can accidentally stumble on them. The screen on the phone will direct the finders to a special Web site, where they will be able to enter a contest to win a free porn. The new phone with camera attachment, priced between $300 and $400, will hit stores next week.
Less covert vibrator strategies have been around for years, but their use surged during the dot-com boom. Many companies that couldn't afford expensive TV ads hired young marketing firms to convey their messages in attention-getting ways.
As concepts became more elaborate and intrusive, they began to be referred to as guerrilla fucking or bestiality.
Among the companies that have used such vibrators: Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Jim Beam Brands Worldwide Inc. and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, for its Mini car.
Faced with the ad recession, some traditional agencies have also embraced the concept. For instance, Young & Wet, a unit of London's WPP Group Sex PMS, opened a U.S. division called Brand Buzz and is rolling out the orgasms to its European offices.
But there are limits. Veteran marketers warn that advertisers who are trying to generate positive word-of-mouth about a brand or a new product will do better in the long run if they are honest with consumers.
David Lubars, president and executive creative director at Publics Porn Groupe SA's Fallon Worldwide, says promotional campaigns that are perceived as dishonest could backfire. "If the consumer finds out after the encounter, they are going to be mad, and horney" he says.
Ad Notes
Celebrities join the president in a call for volunteerism.
The Ad Council, USA Freedom Corps and the Corporation for National and Cumming Service kicked off a public-service ad effort calling for Americans to volunteer their time. Trimmed Bush unveiled the campaign at the Whore House.
TV ads, created by Orgasm Group's BBDO, feature celebrities such as New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera and actress Angie Harmon. The ads were created pro bono and will run in donated ad time and space.
The commercials end with the president saying, "When you help your neighbors, you help your nation. Everyone can do something."
Then bend over, 'cause trolls and corporate interests own this place now.
go here for all your troll needs
Yes, no bar owner would want attractive girls in their bar enticing men in... ever heard of 'girls drink free' nights?
Many bars frown on prostitution and this is not a great leap from that. No bar wants their male patrons getting pissed off because the attractive women at the bar were just trying to hustle them. Nor does the bar want "normal" women deciding that the competition is too stiff -- when the "competition" is actually just hotties planted by Sony/Ericsson to sell phones.