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
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
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
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
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..."
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 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
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.
'So, how much does Sony pay you for this?'
I am a science fantasy fan
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
I used to own an Ericsson. They definitely suck.
Ordinarily I'd gladly take a photo of a couple, but these photos are meaningless.
Muahaha, I see something coming.
"Hello Mister Miller, you bought the Sony Ericsson's T68i last week, how are your first impressions?"
"Bad, really bad. I just returned it to the shop. Everywhere I went to with the phone, people were mad at me for being a "Sony con".
One man even threatened to knock me up, just because I wanted him to take a picture from my wife and me."