Slashdot Mirror
Sony-Ericsson Starts US$5M Astroturf Campaign
lairdb writes "The WSJ reports today (31Jul02) that Sony Ericsson will be marketing their new T68i cellphone/camera combo unit via "shills" to create a grassroots buzz. Specific tactics will include fake tourist couples at popular attractions asking bystanders to take their picture, and "leaners": pairs of women ("actresses and female models") at bars playing interactive Battleship with each other from opposite ends of the bar.
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]""
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
Never mind telling the world via WSJ
... before the pick-pocket crowd notice these shills... With their neverending supply of cameras provided by the company... Being paid to hand them over to other people they don't know... cameras that are new and thus expensive and in high demand...
This should be amusing.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
This kind of story isn't new. This is typical PR stuff. Anyone who wants to lean more should read Toxic Sludge is Good For You, Lies, Damn Lies, and the PR industry.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
damn these foul charades.
eat people not animals
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
And I just stole one of those babies from these old tourists today so I could go play Battleship with these hot chicks I met at the bar last night.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
Ericcson has gone down hill since their alliance with Sony, their phones are a joke and poor quality.
My current phone is Eric T10 which I cant wait to dump in favopur of Nokia 7210 with color screen and j2me support.
Nokia is the way to go.
Down with Crapitali$m. Anarchy NOW!
Don't we have laws requiring advertisments to be obvious? If an ad is not obvious, isn't it required to specifically state "paid advertisement"? This certainly takes the role of a paid advertisement.
Supposedly the actors/models hired for this won't lie when asked if they work for Sony/Ericson, but I wonder how specific the line of questioning has to be? These people are going to waste other peoples' time asking for photos to be taken of them. Ordinarily I'd gladly take a photo of a couple, but these photos are meaningless.
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...
Astroturf isn't nearly so offensive when they're admitting to it up front. In fact, it's more like the Turing Test - can you tell the real technophile barfly from the fake one? Of course, I think the odds of running into two women playing wireless Battleship in a bar are pretty low, so the test would be biased in favor of 'shill' - but for other tests it would be kinda fun.
...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
Back in the day when the shopping cart was invented (were talking 1937 - not amazon.com) the first stores to offer these contraptions noticed that they were not catching on at all .. so what did they do?
...
They resorted to hiring models to shop with grocery carts as to "model" the behavior desired for customers.
Needless to say it worked like a charm
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.
I'm more worried about Sony that I've been about Microsoft. Sony has its hands on too many things and has shown a willingness to use any means to abuse its position.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I start working a couple blocks away in two weeks..
on another note, who's going to be the first in the US to do 3G with a bluetooth phone? how about stapling together a 3G palm phone with bluetooth connection sharing? can you do it today?
Intelligent Life on Earth
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
I was just sitting at the bar, surfing when I stumbled across this thread. I'm doing all this on my new Sony/Ericsson T68i, it's really cool and I love it, I'd post a picture that I took with it, yup, I said that I took a picture with my cell phone, but /. won't let me. If you all have a minute, I'd love to tell you about it and let you check it out .....
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
Just look for the totally lame assholes at the bar. On second thought, think of the potential for false positives. Damn...back to the drawing board.
While this is kind of underhanded, it's an interesting idea -- I guess the suits are beginning to realize that glittery (but really lame) advertising campaigns don't penetrate our bullshit detectors.
Steve
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.
Nader complains. More justice. IIRC, he was the first junk mailer targeting me to send junk mail with a computer font that resembled handwriting, trying to fool me into thinking I was getting a hand-addressed envelope from a grass-roots operation when he was laser-printing the spiel by the millions just like everyone else.
2 women (supposedly gorgeous) playing battleships in a bar... Riiight. EricSony marketoids needs to get out more.
[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.
Before a certain incident which messed up the airline industry pretty bad, my brother held a similar job for one of the major commercial airlines. He was an internet shill for this company. His job was to visit travel websites, message boards, newsgroups, and even AOL travel forums and basically promote his employer as subtlely as possible. The idea was to create a good image of the airline without making it obvious that he worked for them.
He'd make posts under fake names telling stories of how he just used the airline and had a great experience. If he found someone railing on the airline for a particular issue ("my inflight meal was dry") he'd counter it with a positive example ("I flew from LA to Miami last week and the food was great"). Same thing if people were complaining about fares, being bumped, or whatever. He was like an anonymous and multi-faceted PR guy, doing his best to influence peoples opinions of his airline.
I wouldn't doubt that other industries are doing the exact same thing.
I have a T68 and I get people asking me "Hey, that's COOL! Where'd you get that phone? What else can it do?" all the time.
:P
I wish Ericsson would pay *ME* for such encounters.
I don't think this would really create a "fake buzz" because the T68 really is a pretty cool phone. The accessories (like the camera or the mp3 player) are a bit pricey, though.
Whereas, in the rest of the world and in all history prior to the current era, people were honest.
Grow up and read some history. People don't change.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
sh00perz, it's "sentences", not "sentances"
...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 how may people can these folks contact in an hour? If they are trying to make it look like a chance encounter then they can't be doing it to every person that passes by. And what does a pair of actresses cost per hour? Unless it generates a lot of follow on word of mouth my guess that what is going on here is a bunch of ad execs trying to show off how 'outside the box' they can think.
"It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
Bullshit. Television ads are deceptive. Radio ads are deceptive. Print ads are deceptive. Internet ads are deceptive. They only provide a flashy glimpse of the product in question.
These "ads" are live demonstrations of a working product. Whether or not the person doing the demonstration is honest is largely irrelevant. The consumer should focus on the product and it's merits.
The FTC has been warning search engines that try to pass off sponsored results as real, so you would think they would warn Sony about trying to pass off sponsored consumers as real.
"pairs of women ("actresses and female models") at bars"
Hells yeah, actresses and models come round to the lower man's arena! To hell with the cell phones, I want the chicks! Go Sony/Erickson
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Tommy Hillfiger did this to promote their clothes in poor black areas of NYC.
Triv
with my new Sony-Ericsson TI-85 phone
Confused? The TI-85 is a graphing calculator, for Butcher's sake!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I believe the t68 will not support the camera, but the t68i will.
Lousy facepalm.
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
I mean -- for 5 million dollars. christ man... *GIVE AWAY SOME PHONES*. you don't have to hire actor/actresses, you sure as f*k don't have to train them, and you get the same publicity ANYWAY, and it's not limited to the 60 day period. they way every dollar you spend will be twice as effective because the money you would be otherwise spending on hot women would be actually converted into a dozen or so phones floating around in some chatty salesperson's hand, who would go and talk to strangers in a bar about nothing *anyway*.
moreover, even if you get this advertised like so, and whatnot, and people want it -- how much are you willing to bet people will get a "free" motorola with reasonable features vs. paying 200 bux extra for one of these, when they set up a plan? here again, the 5 million should better go toward discounts and stuff.
lastly, it's very annoying if you found out that you got dressed up on friday, invested a good hour on this chick and all she really wanted to talk to you for is to sell you a f*king phone. it's kinda cheap and i think morally it's wrong because you are talking to people under a false pretence, for blatent alterior motives. not to say that this sort of things don't happen -- but to encourage this breach of morality and mutual trust is quite low.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Seems like sony really cashed in on this advertising deal already. They got a article in the wall street journal, slashdot, and probably some other major publications about their new product without even starting the advertising. Even if they never do actually put people on the streets, they got more than enough exposure from these articles alone. Think about it, we all know that the phones have cameras and can play wireless games already. the hardest part of advertising is letting the consumer know the product exists, Sony has already jumped that hurdle and then some.
...it's pretty much like the average user-submitted Slashdot product/book review, huh?
Okay, let me get this straight, my choices for advertising are:
1)annoying and senseless feel good adds on TV about how if I buy this phone I will be popular with all my friends, and be able to take an easy and convenient picture of the girl i just met because my friends called me on the phone to tell me about a great party that was happening somewhere and had lots of hip techno music playing loudly in the background.
2)I can go out to the local bar and there might be some attractive women there to serve as eye candy.
Thank you I will take door number 2.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If a restaurant, bar, or other private firm posts a "no soliciting" notice, the people engaged in this deceptive ploy might be hauled off for trespassing. Alternatively, the owner could take Sony/Ericsson to court and demand a fee for using his/her establishment to advertise their products.
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.
From the WSJ article:
Consumer activists, though, aren't amused. "It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
And you know how the general populace gets when they find out that they've been fed fake buzz....
~geogeek
'So, how much does Sony pay you for this?'
I am a science fantasy fan
Chrylser tried this buzz thing by stocking PT Cruisers at rental car locations in hip parts of Miami.
Here is the definitive article on buzz marketing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sony Ericsson responds that most consumers won't be offended. "How many times do people that you don't know come up to you and talk to you?"
Uh, actually very rarely and I'd like to keep it that way. The ones that do are either lost and clueless or scam artists. I also would rather be referred to as a customer instead of a consumer. They can keep their ugly phone.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Today, we've got a scandal that a big brokerage firm touted junky stocks because of a conflict of interest and everyone wonders what the government should do about. No one expects that the public should simply stop patronizing Merrill Lynch until the SOB's starve to death. WTH not?
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.
People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz
Huh?
if people see strangers using stuff, and think its cool, they'll use it; but if they see strangers using stuff, and those strangers are getting PAID for it... then people suddenly wont want to use it, even if they think it's cool?
What was that guy smoking, anyway?
"It's deceptive," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit organization founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader, when told about the campaign. "People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
Since when did "thinking this is honest buzz" become an endangered consumer right? If these guys can pull it off for $60 mill, congrats, thats a pretty damned clever marketing campaign. I'm sure it will wear thin in due time as others try it and the consumers start seeing through it.
Sony-Ericsson is going much further with this, to actually train and pay the people. That's unusual. Those people who hand you invites in clubs seldom get more than free admission. Models who go out in designer outfits often get the outfit as a freebie, but no pay. Many of the wilder haircuts are freebies, too; stylists have to try out their exotic styles on somebody. Ask women with wild haircuts where they got them done; often it's a promotional deal. And almost everybody in the sales end of the rag trade gets promotional deals on clothing.
I'd prefer to see the new sexier than sexy models out in the bars demonstrating the latest in condoms...
"Hey, sir... can you help me out with this whiz-bang new product? I really think you'd like it."
Maybe it's just me.
I'm on a chair.
Me: Hey, what's the number of your phone?
She: 100 dollars!
Me: BITCH!
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
And it really is a nice piece of kit.
It has basically everything that you will EVER need on it.
GPRS and GSM so that you can get on the web - anyone thinking of writing a WAP page based SSH client - then I could manage my servers on the run
IMAP4 and POP3 mail means that my email gets to me when I get it - and you can schedule it to check at various intervals.
One or two problems with it, but those are service provider based.
Sure MMS may be a fad, but hey its not like it was a main point in this phones favour anyway, just an interesting extra.
For the record BTW my previous phone was a Sony Z5
Main reason that this phone is so good tho is its long time between charges - currenly it says I got over 200 hours on standby, and that was 20 hours since I took it off charge.
As for the Camera - well thats just a gimmick really - mind you, didnt stop gadget-boy here getting one, tho I cant report on the quality of the pix, I dont have any way of getting them off the phone yet as my Service Provider is having problems finding my email server.
Anyway, I would have to recommend this phone.
Great... first it was radiation to my brain... now with this camera thing it'll be radiation straight into *my eye*.
As if I don't get enough of that from staring at this monitor all day waiting for a new Slashdot story...
Gmanske.
The net result of this kind of marketing will be to make people suspicious of each other. It is evil. As someone else pointed out, normal demos would do better, except they might be run off by park officials for soliciting.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
But the camera's not built in. You get the camera attachment as an additional accessory, for an extra cost of course.
I have a T68i. It's damn cool. I'm sad that they're going to start selling them in the US because I like being one of the only people to have one. I got mine on the SAN FRANCISCO CELL PHONE BLACK MARKET.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
It's an innovative way to market a product. Why on earth is this article so negative about it, almost like it's a morally reprehensible thing to do?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
According to SonyEricsson filings to the FCC, the hardware of the T68i is identical to that of the T68 - it's just a new cover, new back, and different coloured LEDs behind the keypad.
The rest of the differences are in the software. In most markets that T68i is available in, SonyEricsson have made a software update available for the T68 - effectively transforming it into a T68i. The software upgrade has been available in most of Europe and Asia for a few months now. Down here in Australia, we're still waiting for it and the T68i to be officially released.
There are currently two different models of snap-on cameras ("CommuniCam") for these phones.
The original CommuniCam is the MCA-10, which works with the original T68 and a few of Ericsson's older phones.
The new model is the the MCA-20, which currently works only with the T68i, afaik.
The older model has an inbuilt viewfinder, and most of the 'brains' are within the camera itself - the phone is little more than a data device. The newer model has no inbuilt viewfinder - you do the viewfinding on the phone screen itself. More of the processing has been moved into the phone; so the phone now stores the images internally, and can use them for MMS (multimedia messaging), screen backgrounds, caller number presentation, etc.
When XP and Redhat 7.(2 or 3) came out at about the same time, I went right over to CompUsa to get my copy and as I approached the checkout counter some guy who had been standing near the register with a box of XP excitedly asked the clerk if there was any software for XP, who pointed at the Office XP, etc. in the first rack behind the registers. He ran over and merrily grabbed one of everything that said XP on it and headed back to get in line behind me. The clerk virtually busted out laughing when he saw I was buying Redhat though I didn't get the feeling that he was laughing at me, and he said they had been selling a lot of it. The whole thing with the XP guy just seemed staged, especially after I looked back on my way out and they weren't even ringing up his "purchases". So I don't think using shills to generate fake excitement is anything new.
and hand you a phone. You can either buy it and sign up fort hree years serevice or she gets to take a "dirt nap" for eternity.
I'm LMAO but I'm sure that any phone company shill would get a boner at that kind of sales tactic.
Advertising is about dishonesty, lying, cheating prevaricating or even using statistics to extract money from you.
If you see a product advertised, don't buy it, or the product. Send Madison Avenue to the poor house.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The product seems cool enough to sell it's self. I mean it's not as complex as a freaking TiVo.
Actually, no one likes anything. Anyone looking interested or nonlethargic is hired by someone!
May we never see th
"The company decided to make available hundreds of sets of the new portable cassette player, free of charge, to key persons prior the public launch. These key persons were carefully chosen and selected. Sets were given to magazine editors, and specially, touring musicians, they use to carry records and tapes of the music they are going to play and the directors comments and instructions of different aspects of the piece in order to be prepared for the concert."
.. who owns the Ericsson phone business??? Sony!
"A further promotional tactic involved the company paying couples to stroll through Tokyoís biggest and important shopping district whilst listening to their Walkmans. Several Vox Populi interviews. were conducted in collaboration with broadcasters, in the airports and train stations, to ask visitors to Japan about their opinion and their responses to the new portable cassette
player. Their reactions were video - taped and featured in news broadcasts."
Wait a second
More on http://www.eafit.edu.co/revista/117/acosta.pdf
Oct 31, 12:56 ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)
Sony Ericsson announces the end of their shortlived advertising campaign. The new T68i, a mobile phone that can double as a digital camera had been advertised in a truely unconventional manner. Paid Actors pretended to be tourists who would ask unsuspecting passersby if they would take photos of the couple to expose them to their new product. Unfortunatly for Sony Ericsson, a higher than expected number of the passersby were camera thieves.
In a related story,
How did Sony rack up $2,000,000 in phone sex charges?
Here is a story I heard a while ago that fits well here. I haven't been able to verify it yet, so any additional info would be appreciated. Here is how it goes:
Back in the days when Sony was a no-name outside Japan, two Japanese guys were sent to Europe to prepare the market for the entry of their company's products. Not really knowing how to do, and maybe because they liked the fine german brews, they came up with the following plan: for 6 months, all they did was tour the bars of Germany asking for a "Sony please?".
The story doesn't say if they were ever served a sony cocktail (a sunny maybe?), but their campaign worked beyond their expectations, with word-of-mouth spreading questions about these "Japanese dudes asking for a sonee... --A what? --A sonee... --Hmmm, a... sonee... Never heard of that one. I'll ask around."
When Sony started selling their products their, everybody had heard the name, and noone had a clue about what it meant! I know many here will dislike this marketing technique, but the thing is: it works. And in marketing, it's all that counts.
I code, therefore I am.
Seems like more than a few to me.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
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.
If they're going to all this trouble, why not just hire some sluts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H "actresses" to wear low cut blouses with the phone strategically stuffed into their cleavage? Displaying a photo of herself in the all-together?
Pairs of "leaners" in bars! "If you were cool enough to buy this phone, you could get my number on the pretex of playing battleship while buyiing me drinks from across the bar!" Giggle, giggle. "And then you could use the phone to take pictures of me flashing my tits in forfeit for losing at battleship!" Giggle, giggle.
I wonder how much Mr. Brillaint PR Man got paid for this stunning idea?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Cuz we all know that when nuble young women go to bars, they go there to play Battleship.
"Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice."
"Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. "
"Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman."
http://www.cluetrain.org/
No Zen is good zen
Assuming they're going to be fully-enabled (for demo purposes, natch) we should be able to email or otherwise upload the pictures to a web site for display. People go to the web site, they see the actors' pictures, they learn who to avoid.
Their own product used against them.
Since thousands of /.'ers and WSJ'ers have now read about this phone. I wouldn't be surprised if this "60 day campaign" is over before the first "tourists" ask someone to take their picture.
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." -- Former Governor Bush, March 13, 2002
You're right. We can win. But we'll either have to stop being phonies or keep moving the goalposts.
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.
"[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]"
Going as far as telling the "leaners" to sleep with the first drunken guy who hits on them in the bar.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Taking out the battery until you get home?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Would you rather see a couple hot chicks in the bar playing battleship (and actually even be able to engage in a conversation with them, the fact they're selling you a phone aside) or would you rather see yet another fucking pop-up, banner ad, spam, billboard, or tv commercial?
How is it any different from seeing a new toy that a friend, co-worker, or even complete stranger has and deciding you might want to buy one? Who was the first person you ever saw with a Palm Pilot? Did they tell you how much it costs and where you can get one? How's that any different?
An old business partner and I used a similar tactic when we were running a small gunsmithing business....we put together a couple of really pimped out custom rifles (a couple AR-15s and an SKS) and hit the local firing ranges. When people would ask "wow, where the hell did you get that?" we'd hand them a business card and let 'em take a few shots. I don't see this phone tactic as much different....it's a non-intrusive way to get your product out there.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Did anyone else flinch at this line?
"It's deceptive...People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz."
Isn't this taking consumer activism a weeee bit far? I know Nader's trying to play the everything-companies-do-is-evil card as much as he can, but come on...this is absurd.
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
Florida
Yes it's been used before, but this grasroots buzz thang got into a lot of people's heads recently with the publication of the book _The Tipping Point_. The book described, in a number of ways, how big changes come from a series of small events. One of the examples was about buzz around shoes - the inner-city kids wanted 'em because they were cheap (because nobody else wanted them); because so many kidz bought 'em they became kinda hip; fashion designers saw them in clubs/bars and started dresing their models in them; magazine editors saw the models on runways and in ads, and started doing stories on them, etc.
I'm giving the simplistic version. _The Tipping Point_ is not just about marketing buzz, but the book did well enough that I think a lot of marketers want to use the "tipping point" principles for their product -- and that starts with buzz creation. If it works, expect to see more of it.
I can't imagine that an already-nervous USA is going to be too happy to have a lot of people behaving strangely around famous tourist attractions. The mind boggles at what might happen if the local security guards get nervous.
I would much rather see a separate bluetooth enabled "real" camera.
Soft, by Rupert Thompson (ISBN 0-7475-3670-8). A beverage company uses subliminal messages, and "embassadors" to pitch their product. Very creepy book. Then again, it's a creepy idea.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
This story discusses an Australian shoe company putting up sexually provocative billboards in the expectation of provoking complaints from the various wowser groups and thus getting themselves a bunch of free publicity. Cheap and effective.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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!"
I work for Phillip Morris, they have me go to parties and bars and bum people cigarettes.
Shit I just got fired...
Notice the complete and accurate information, and the colloquial description of features followed by their branded name ("There are currently two different models of snap-on cameras ("CommuniCam") for these phones.). Not to mention the "informational" links and the subtle sense that the user is waiting impatiently for this service to come to his country. Hell, he even praises how owners of a current model can get a free upgrade!
While working for a company that sold modems I was doing nearly the same thing. I visited many IT sites, argumented on discussions, helped with linux drivers for winmodems (there are still requests for them, after a year that I no more work for company, comming to my e-mail). And yes - it helped to build the image of brand between linux users here in Slovakia. And not - it was not my direct task, I just knew a lot of things, so why not help?
Is that too much to ask?
Female Prison Rape in NY
If they can sell several hundred phones to the same geeks who by CLIEs and then all the things actors do will happen naturally for free and with less potential embarassment (what if real phone owners will be harassed in a bar because people think they are advertisers?). If they can not even sell a few by putting them in Fry's, ad campaign will not do much good either
This sounds exaactly like a certain recruiting post on Craigslist about six weeks ago.
God, having an eidetic memory comes in handy...
Kevin Fox
Any chance this will backfire? I mean, any time you see an attractive (i.e. living) woman using one of these things in the next six months, you're going to ask them if they're a whore, right?
And if you do buy one, do you want people coming up to you every thirty seconds demanding to try it out?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The T68i processor is about 25% faster than the T68's.
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
For all you T68i owners that want to play with MMS but can't, check out www.zidango.com. They'll set up your phone remotely to run MMS and charge about $.40 a message.
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
For example, I know after many years those IMEI stolen phone blocking is only now being trialed in Oz..
Gez, every GSM phone I've owned has been stolen (being an ex-junkie, well these days more of a once in a blue moon junkie, I know plenty of junkies), except for my current one, & all worked fine with pre-paid sim cards, whether in Oz, the Netherlands, France or the UK
*grins*
;)
nah. i'm just a genuine freak.
i'm not really impatiently waiting for the 'service', i'm impatiently waiting for the upgrade. in fact i'm annoyed that they're not letting me upgrade... the software is ready and waiting (released to most of the rest of the world 4 months ago), the only reason they won't give it to me is cauz they don't want to hurt sales of the 'new model' once it comes out (and i'm suspecting they're holding off on that until they get rid of old stock
I already have a T68i, the cameras cost something like one hundred GBP (150 dollars) ... getting the camera for free would be great!
... it's a tough life!
Now I have to go hang around bars and wait to find a model/actress playing games
In late 2000, two-thirds of Ericsson Australia employees used Nokias. It got to the point where the 'Christmas bonus' for employees in the development organisation was an R320s (the two years old model) with a free Vodafone contract (Vodafone being a complete joke for coverage in Australia).
I just moved to the UK. First thing I did was buy a prepaid phone. (Vodafone, admittedly, but their coverage here is actually pretty good.) I went for the Sony. You wouldn't believe how pissed off I was when I found out it was really another bloody Ericsson.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Above quotes from Carl Hamilton's interesting and witty book on the planning of the marketing campaign of Absolut Vodka. The quotes are my translation from the original swedish book: Absolut Historien om Flaskan [p. 221]. Also available in english: "Absolut: Biography of a Bottle".
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
Ah, true, never though about that! ;-)
Still though, good info, didn't know I could upgrade my t68 to a t68i.
Funny got my t68 for 'free', left my t65 in the shop for repairs (it sucked big style - switched itself of several times a day) and got back a t68, oops, can't complain!
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Yar, we've had umpteen generations of camera in phone in Japan, what else is new. Don't suppose anybody cares about specs or anything. The phone's probably nice though I heard there was a big problem with the quality of all the phones the merged companies have made together up until the last one that was sold.
Maybe this one will be the charm (or maybe not, in which case there's always battleship, right?) Not. Oh, nice popup ad for some sleek mobile phone slashdot. As long as we're in an irony mood you just take the cake as usual. (Spoken as someone who recently did a big event for *free* for the two then unmerged but in bed sponsors.
Just make a good goddam cheap phone and it will sell in the U.S. too fer chrissakes! No frikkin magnesium shit but no piece of crap neither! --Yer local redneck.
The commercials end with the president saying, "When you help your neighbors, you help your nation. Everyone can do something."
For Operation TIPS then it goes like this
"When you [spy on] your neighbors, you [spy on] your nation. Everyone can do something."
"People will be fooled into thinking this is honest buzz." - from the article
:).
:)
Hmm, well I never! Honest buzz... wow, and I never would have guessed that an advertiser paying for a advertisement in a magazine/website/newpaper/billboard/etc. would be trying to pull one over on me. I'd like to think that people can look out for themselves, and realize that somethings are too good to be true (i.e. the attractive female model talking to me!
On the other hand if an attractive model comes up to me, I don't think I'll turn away in revulsion!
"...I'll need guns" --Chow Yun-Fat in 'Replacement Killers'
First off, it's "its". Not "it's". Please, folks.
Secondly, I work at an ad agency, and this kind of stuff is proposed WAY more than you'd expect, but hardly ever actually occurs, due to the astounding costs. I was working on a national rum campaign recently, and the client proposed a shill campaign: fat guys in loud Hawaiian shirts sitting in bars all over the country with hidden cameras, ordering rum drinks for cute girls. The resulting videos would become TV commercials. The idea was dropped when they saw the pricetag.
I'm a T68 owner and work in the telecoms industry. My colleagues and I said months ago that the only way to sell these things is to go out there and show people what they can do. Admittedly, we meant doing it in a company t-shirt... :)
MMS has launched here in .uk, and still I get a blank stare at the mention of it. There are probably more than a few people on here who haven't heard about it, and that in a community of geeks! Spend 30 seconds explaining what you can do with it, and that blank stare turns into uncontrollable drooling.
We have all this great technology that nobody knows about. Anything that gets people informed about it and wanting it, gets average subscriber revenues up, and gets the network operators spending money, (and keeps me in a job), is a good thing in my book.
I'd still rather they were being a bit more open about this though.
I can't wait to see the $5 million campaigns where shills and leaners are sent to bars and colleges to complain about how thier new Dell Dimension totally sucks, or their Tivo really bites.
Jake
what sony wants me to think:
hmm, interesting. I wonder what that lady is doing with that cellphone. Is that a digital camera as well? That's a pretty cool idea. Maybe I should look into getting one as too...
what I'm really thinking:
Man, look at that totally hot chick with that gizmo. I wonder if i could get her number.
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
C|Net features the new phone prominently on their homepage as their Editor's Choice! Those shills, they show up in the strangest places!
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
Sorry but this isn't strictly true. People in advertising and usually big business too are not ethical types.. they'll usually only adhere to the law as far as they believe they can get away with it, hence the likes of Enron.
For example, there was a story on 60 Minutes (I think it was) a year or two back about how companies were astroturfing with children. I noticed in the background of one quick filmed scene how an adult astroturf guy was on a computer using AOL Instant Messenger pretending to be a teenager in order to 'tell' them about whatever game/music/etc they were 'marketing'.
They'll also say for example, that the kids chosen to go to a [marketing] competition have 'won', when infact they've been chosen for their looks and popularity.
Don't put anything past these guys, remember what they said about Windows.
shill!
The Awful Truth
I like this bit of the article... Even marketing executives disapprove. "It is reprehensible and desperate," says Paul MacFarlane, co-owner of the Experiment, a small ad firm in St. Louis, that has done work for Southwestern Bell ...
... "in separate news, competitors of Ericcson infiltrated other advertising firms with actors and actresses whose job it was to show a faux-genuine disapproval of a well known and much used advertising technique. 'We hope to implicate Ericsson in underhand practices at a grass-roots level' said one unnamed exectutive..."
I guess that should translate as
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
Hurray for the "leaners"! Looks like the odds of a woman talking to me at the bar is getting better... She may be getting paid to do it, but for a change, I'm not the one paying her! ;-)
next($sig) unless($sig =~
They put a camera in a phone. I can just see the patent now...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Heh, if anything, this sounds like a shill.
Big difference between a shill and a karma whore.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Chewlies Gum
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
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
I just signed up for AT&T's GSM/GPRS service and got a T68i. Every single time I tried to use the GPRS data feed, the damn thing crashed. Yes, crashed. Whatever CPU they are using is way too slow for that phone, too -- try and type commands fast and it'll get royally confused.
;-)
So I traded it for the Nokia 8390. No color screen and no bluetooth, but it doesn't crash either. I'm now more convinced than ever that Nokia is the only company that puts any time into designing cell phone hardware *and* software.
Now if only Nokia sold that new 75xx phone with the camera in the US...
NOTE: I don't work for Nokia and I don't get kickbacks from them... I just like their phones
-nate
Right.. no one will ever suspect the models, because hot chicks are synonymous with video games..
Or maybe part of the "training" was in the application of a moustache and a prosthetic beer gut.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The Colt guy sounds a lot like Dirty Harry ("the most powerful handgun in the world" and so on). Scary.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
hawk
hawk
"Other components of the promotional campaign are more commonly used buzz initiatives. One involves "Phone Finds," in which the company will place dummy phones 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 phone. The new phone with camera attachment, priced between $300 and $400, will hit stores next week." I can see these phone ending up a pawn shops or wherever, it seems like Sony could just scatter real phones instead of spending the moolah to build fakes ones. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, I'd rather have folks "find" a free phone and sign up for a service plan (and don't you think everyone would tell their friends about the new phone they found) rather than putting out dummy phones that only advertise.
(Jeez, this sounds like a shill, or a troll-for-a-shill. Apologies. But I do actually want to know.)
Vote Quimby!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Everybody are excited about Ericsson's and Nokia's new top-of-the-line models, but are there any alternatives? One that seems pretty cool to me in the previews is the Panasonic GD87, mainly because of the polyphonic ringtones, 65k colours display and digital camera. No JAVA tho, it seems. If it is cheap enough it will probably be one to consider anyway? Anyone know any more cool "underdog" alternatives?
But given my not-too-good financial state at the moment I will probably have to set my aims lower. I have found two alternatives that seem pretty nice and good value for the money:
Siemens M50 is cheap, has JAVA and GPRS, but two colour display and monophonic ringtones.
Panasonic GD67 has got 256 colours display and polyphonic ringtones, but no JAVA there either. It will probably cost about the same as the Siemens M50.
Are there any other cellphones among the cheaper ones that can beat those two that I should know about?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I'd say that the reluctance of shoppers to use the carts was due to a lack of confidence to "break the mould", leading to them conforming to the usual pattern of behaviour, i.e. using a basket. I've noticed that this is not a limitation that applies to many geeks, including myself. I'm happy to do things my way, to experiment, and make my own mistakes.
As for the T68i, I strongly suspect many people will not bother with one simply because the don't fscking need one.
There's only so many multimedia capabilities I need outside of my cosy little nerd-cave. If/when I get myself a digital camera, you can bet your arse it's gonna be better than SVGA.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
The "general public" simply does not realise the value of "non-conmformists" to society. Thanks to the mass-media.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
While on holiday in Paris last month I was approached by a German couple asking me to take a photo of them with a Sony Digital Camera. They reciprocated and photograhed me using my Olympus Digital Cam. The gentleman suggested that when I replace my camera I should choose a Sony since they integrate very easily with Windows, and had a whole host of benefits. (I didn't mention I haven't played with any Microsoft products for the best part of 12 months). At the time, my dad actually wondered aloud whether he was sponsored by Sony.
Of course it's possible he was simply impressed with his equipment, but maybe this article has some truth.
Just my 0.02
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
i played with one at a trade fair 2 weeks ago. to be honest, i was disappointed with the image quality. it has no builtin flash, and it performs badly in low indoor lighting.
max res is 640x480. basically expect not much more from it than you would from a webcam capable of that res. perhaps a little more clarity.
So essentially he was hired to be a professional liar and shill for the company? Brilliant. How does he sleep at night knowing he was paid to be a professional liar? People looking to get actual real-world advice about a product before they spend their hard earned money are being lied to by a PR guy in disguise... that just reaks of immorality.
Actually his spiritual director encouraged him. Since the shill was previously a lawyer, Father O'Connor thought that this job was not so sinful.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
How can the companies evaluate that the promotion is not too blatant and not to ineffective?
Do they run surveys asking "Did you know out product from a guy in an Internet forum named "Jack3"?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
If these `hot bar chicks' are just a little careless about getting lubricated so they can better play their role, they might become `laid advertising'.
He: `Why do your knickers have `ADVERTISEMENT' written across them?' She: `Hush, now. Keep your mind on your driving... ohhhhh... yes...' Would that count as `phone sex'?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
sig: Uh, whose car is that out front?
Mine. 1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule.
Same deal here man! It's great, isn't it? How's yours treatin ya?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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