Slashdot Mirror
Sony Behind Fake YouTube Viral Campaign
Wowzer writes "Sony is up to the same old tricks again. Following in the footsteps of their fake PSP Graffiti campaign, Sony has hired marketing company Zipatoni to set up a YouTube-based viral marketing scheme for the Sony PSP. The company did this by registering the domain alliwantforxmasisapsp. There are no disclaimers to show it isn't 'real', but the website's whois points out it's setup by Zipatoni." From the C&VG article: "The lies don't end there, fake comments have been posted at Kotaku only linking to the Youtube video to increase its pageviews: 'Good call on DJ max. Regarding music: if changes were to be made for westerners, this guy should be considered - LOLZ'" Update: 12/13 02:37 GMT by Z : The Washington Post has an article stating that the FTC will look into situations like this, if they perchance to come up.
... it is not lying... it is, and has been for many years called marketing.
the beer commercial shows you that when you open up one of their beers you get 20 naked women to show up at your party, but the "other" beer brings balding middle aged men.
This is no different from any other commercial on any other form of media.
Hell, Some drug ads never say what they do (so they don't have to give side effects) similar to Sony not saying this is an ad.
Is it my imagination or is Sony's strategy for their playstation line to attempt to make their product 'cool' rather than to make it a good product for gamers. Over the life of the PSP it has been outsold by both the GBA and Nintendo DS and has failed to make a larger impact largely because it is not a particularly good portable videogame machine. Had Sony put the effort into it the PSP would have a larger library of good games, and in particular a library of unique 'portable gaming' content for the PSP, which would make the system sell far better.
Sorry, I am not quite clear on what Sony has done wrong? They paid someone to help them advertise the PSP. The advertises did this by attempting to create a viral campaign. Ok, so beside the fact that this is clearly not aimed at slashdotters or the other people who seem to be getting upset about it, why is this a problem?
Don't get me wrong, I will never by a PSP or another sony product again (the cameras were ok), for the many attrocties they have done on the buying product (and I don't count the price of the PS3 amoung them), but lets stop knocking them for every little thing they do.
This here's a must-read if you haven't read it yet... Bill Hicks's rant on marketing.
http://sennoma.net/main/edits/Hicks.html
This is how it starts... "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself."
It only gets better.
Some poor lawyer had to pretend to be a subliterate 14-year-old while adding a disclaimer to that mess!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Marketroids are duplicitous, unscuplulous, charlatans
Not to mention you're fucked without the ice beam.
I know I'll get tagged flamebait, troll and whatnot, but this is pretty much the way Apple's products are being marketed. The items are made "trendy", they are sold via the way of being "hip" and "cool", and that everyone wants one because they're hip and cool. How many ads do you know that talk about the features and unique things the iPod can do? How many of the accessoires that you can buy for it do really have additional value to it?
/.er, I've had my share of problems and (needless) lawsuits with them. But what they do here is exactly what marketing is about today. Creating a hype. Making the product cool and thus making people want it. Not because it is technically superior or offers more utility than the competition, but simply because "so many say it's cool, so it's gotta be cool".
Aside from the ITMS, which a good deal of iPod users never touched, what's the advantage over other MP3 players on the market? I mean, technically, not from being "cool".
Now, I hate Sony maybe even MORE than the average
If you have an iPod, ask yourself why. Because you compared it and you actually found it REALLY superior to the other products in that market sector, or because someone told you it's cool and that you should have it? You needn't answer. Just ask yourself and try to be honest with yourself.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It isn't fake, It IS a viral market campaign mixed with youtube fake phenomenoum(like lovelygirl15). It wouldn't be as effective if a company made a real ad and posted in youtube.
By getting all this exposure they must alredy have succeded in spiking PSP sales.
That and MGS Portable Ops(this game is awesome).
...to be saying this.
The difference between a beer ad with 20 naked women and the youtube thing is that the beer ad doesnt try to make you think its real.
What sony is doing is not called marketing, its called deception.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is nothing wrong with marketing but I think a lot of people have problems with paid corporate influence of things like user reviews. Perfectly legal for them to do but it is kind of slimy from the customers prospective (since they expect non biased reviews from 3rd parties). Paying someone to "pose" as an unbiased 3rd party to peddle your product will definatly seem dishonest to the customer.
That said, what is disturbing about this particular marketing site is how BAD it is. The horrible rap video and fake user comments with 'l337' speak does not help them with thier target audience. Some might say that there is no such thing as bad press. Well that is definatly not true. It is especially not true when you are pushing 'hip' and "trendiness' of your product. That's a dangerous road, one mistep or one improper association and you undue all of your positive marketing work. In this case I can easily see someone pulling out a PSP to play and thier friends imediatly start ragging them by mockingly rapping to "all I want for christmas is a PSP" video. Does Sony really want to associate themselves with beyond horrible rap songs and piss poor attempts at l337 speak???
Ves
The big difference of course though is that Apple and Nintendo currently don't NEED to do this. They didn't need to create fake blogs to get people to talk about current or upcoming products, because there are plenty of real ones that do this for them. Sony of course doesn't always need to do this either........ if you have a successful or in-demand product like the PS3, you don't need to create a website like alliwantforxmasisaps3.com.
Outside of that though, historically speaking, Apple and Nintendo haven't really had to do this, or even when you could say they had to do, it isn't the kind of thing they normally would do. I mean, remember, the Mac has minuscule marketshare, all things being equal. Nintendo's GameCube came in third place. But Apple and Nintendo haven't used that as an excuse to create some goofy fake site to try and add hipness or something to their product lines.
And really, Sony doesn't have to do that either. The other tact to take with the PSP is to keep releasing high quality titles like MGS: Portable Ops, and get REAL buzz going again for the platform from real people.
This to me just demonstrates the quality of the advertising and marketing industry. They produce this sort of garbage more for their own reputation and portfolio than they do for the good of the client.
They want to demonstrate that they're capable of doing extreme, creative work but the end result is lame and far from being creative. It's like they produce the first crappy idea someone comes up with. And it seems they're obsessed with Adult Swim and Youtube.
I'm curious is Sony openly embraced these campaigns or if they were forced into it by the marketing company. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. From personal experience, I've found the people at many of these advertising companies to be very arrogant. I also get the distinct impression from their surveys that they seem to have a habit of fabricating market research which somehow always demonstrates that their way of doing things is the most effective.
I realize everyone seems to enjoy bashing Sony and I can't say I disagree with much of what is said. That said, I can't say this is unique to Sony. I'd say most consumer goods companies use this sort of advertising. To single out Sony for this over anyone else is a bit foolish to me. What I do hate is this sort of advertising, to me it's an insult to my intelligence. But then, I hate advertising in general.
I thougt this was about this video about the Wii and PS3 And I thought: why would sony expect this to be positive marketing. Then I realized it was about something else. But I guess its all viral marketing, just some is better than others.
i think you have your terms confused.
when a prominent media figure uses lawyers and journalists to avoid telling the truth, that's called spin .
when a government official enlists the help of others to not tell the truth, that's called a national security .
when a huge multi-national corporation doesn't tell the truth, that's called marketing .
when a regular person, doesn't tell the truth and has no money, politcal affiliation or legal representation that's lying .
lying is bad. spinning, marketing, and national security are what keeps us safe at night.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
This sentence of my creation highlights something everyone who's ever used IRC, read Barrens chat, or hacked the e-mail of a 14 year old knows. People who use ur and luv and similar shortcuts and mispellings will not be using proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. It doesn't happen.
Yet, here is what we have from the website. I will be pointlessly dissecting it.
People do not use colons on the internet. That key is the jaded and lost son of the realm of QWERTY. People also make assumptions, assumptions such as their identity being well known. They won't be specifying that they are "charlie", you should already know that. If you don't, you're a noob. Jeremy fails to be derided for not having a PSP. Lastly, no one speaking like this would specify "this year", or type "one" out. Number keys are there 4 a reason.
No one on the internet can spell subtle, let alone know where to use hyphens. A common thing to notice is the use of larger words here were smaller ones would have sufficed. "started" could be "were" or "did". "created" is two syllabels longer than "made". The last sentence would more improperly be "we maed this site 2 giv luv 4 u who want a psp liek j!"
Again with the long words. Very few words over 2 syllabels are in the common lexicon on the internet. "consider", "personal", "holiday", "whoever", all unknown to the internet mind. Again with the hyphens as well. There are no "girl"s on the internet, only "gf"s, and when was the last time we saw "granny"? What kid this supposed age would have a "boss"?
Anyone who uses ur is not going to type out "you". "you" is four characters too many as it is. Also, the kind of comraderie shown in this last sentiment is completely foreign. This is the internet, not a high tea. There are no favors, there are only noobs and 1337 h4x.
if ur goin 2 b 1337 u hav 2 b cool like m3 lol
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I can't see anything to refute here...
I am Batman and you are a green llama in a drag. Prove me wrong!
Bot Assisted Blogging
Ah, but you forget, it is now "cool" to hate Sony and talk about how much you hate them at every chance you get. Logic, consistency, and fairness are out the window.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
In fact, I am pretty sure more than a few "reviews" on Slashdot are just paid advertising.
I don't think the average ./ reader, or the average consumer would be too accepting of this sort of thing, regardless of who did it. Think for a second about what is going on here. An advertising firm is trying to pass off their ads as completely neutral, unsolicited praise for a product.
/. would either.
Everyone knows that advertisements stretch the truth a little, but we accept it because we know they're ads, we know they were created with a profit-driven agenda, and so we can compensate. We compensate by researching products, trying to find opinions and information from consumers; people who have bought, tried, used, and abused the product. There is a lot of demand for unfiltered assessments of products, because we all know that the company produced ads are bunk. What Sony is doing here is muddying that process.
Am I surprised that advertising has moved on to this? No, not really. I am surprised that a company as big as Sony feels the need to do it (and that they did it so poorly). But surprised or not, I definitely don't have to like it or approve of it. I, from time to time, worship at the altar of Apple. But if they were to do something like this, I would not be impressed, and I don't think
Viral marketing isn't inherently bad. A good example was the 'i love bees' dealie that bungie did a while back. It was mysterious, and resulted in a lot of publicity, but it wasn't so blatantly dishonest. It was trying to create buzz, and not trying to pass off paid advertising as legitimate opinions. That was a genius marketing campaign.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
" If it really was just some schmo who setup the site, why would it have an iota more credibility than anything else?"
Are you seriously asking why a satisfied customer would have an iota more credibility than a Sony paid advertisement?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I got my iPod in 2001. Yes, it was really superior to everything out there at the time. It held more than a 128mb Rio flash player and was tiny in comparison to the Nomad Jukebox. It was more expensive and didn't have as much storage, but on the other hand file transfer was 10x faster, UI navigation was faster, and battery life was better.
:)
It's not my fault that Creative couldn't come out with a competitor (The Zen) until 2004, three years later.
The hype and the cool and the hip came years later. Without a core of simplicity and functionality the iPod hype would have fizzled away... much like the PSP will soon too
GPL Deconstructed
This is the sort of stuff that I have issues with on community oriented sites now that businesses have infiltrated them. YouTube should threaten to take this crap down since Sony is essentially offloading the filehosting capabilities onto YouTube for this stuff. I feel the same way when I see a movie or album advert on tv now with a URL directing to its MySpace page. These are supposed to be sites to build communities around, not a freaking marketing section of the web.
Insert Sig Here
Quick, look and see if there are any comments posted by EarlDittman!
... you become part of that viral marketing scheme. Good work, Slashdot editors.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
After looking at the site I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Do middle school kids really talk and act like that today or is this just some marketing dweebs wet dream. No other middle school generation could've ever been this dorky as what I saw on Sony's web site.
Outside of that though, historically speaking, Apple and Nintendo haven't really had to do this, or even when you could say they had to do, it isn't the kind of thing they normally would do.
You assume too much. Apparently you forget the DataDyne marketing campaign by Nintendo for Perfect Dark which was dubbed the gayest campaign of all time by Nintendo's fans. Oh right, I forgot that Nintendo can do no wrong. And apparently you're implying that Sony relies on astroturfing for 100% of their marketing, which I don't think is correct.
I mean, remember, the Mac has minuscule marketshare, all things being equal. Nintendo's GameCube came in third place. But Apple and Nintendo haven't used that as an excuse to create some goofy fake site to try and add hipness or something to their product lines.
And you also would excuse Apple for dumping toxic waste and killing kitties because their marketshare makes them less important? I don't think so. Based on sales figures alone at the moment Sony has limited market share with the PSP, no? And the PS3 is in third place, right? So you're attacking them and excusing Apple and Nintendo even though their in the same situation.
Other things have been advertised via viral marketing... just 'cause its Sony it gets headlines? You say theyre 'up to their old tricks again'... well congratulations, you're the reason this type of marketing is successful.
Put it another way: you want to play dumb, that's fine - just don't act like I am.
This happens all the time these days. People are paid to put fake youtube.com videos and post ads in public forums all the time.
Anyway, anyone ever had Bachelor Chow (c)? Great stuff!
Is this new method really worth the bad PR that follows once it's uncovered?
Hmm, but I guess that's the market analysts job to confirm before putting such plans into action...
I don't like it though; videos are alright if they wish to hide who made them, but posting such comments feels like crossing a line to me.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You realize that slashdot has now become part of their viral marketing engine? This is all going exactly as planned. Now they just need an article in the NYT ranting about how sony put up fake advertising, which would of course provide links to that very advertising as slashdot has done. Bingo bango, here's an extra 50,000 PSPs sold.
I sort of tend to agree with you; in fact, in most other situations I would completely agree about "viral marketing", but in this case Sony's attempt to talk IM-speak with the kids is the 2006 equivalent of your fat white old teacher trying to rap at you in 1992 because that's what all these crazy kids are doing these days. Except if Sony was your teacher, they'd have a big fucking clock around their neck like Flava Flav and gold rings on every finger, all trying to flash gang signs with their arms crossed over their chest and every other word out of their mouth would be "phat".
And jesus, Sony, you look dumb as hell with your hat on sideways. It's EMBARRASSING.
It amazes me how this can go on the front page of Slashdot. It's no different from Microsoft paying bloggers and editors to post negative stories about their competitors or positive stories about their own products. "Paying" can be in the form of different incentives, such as advertising dollars, pre-written articles, special information, or just plain cash.
To link to another non-issue regarding the "graffiti" just shows how biased this story is.
Let's talk about more Microsoft innovation, shall we?
Argh, I am replying to you even though i've moderated in this discussion, because you talk such crap.
The datadyne sites were cool sites where you could read about a fictional company from a game. It gave people who were waiting for PD to come out a little something to explore, like a fictional world leaking into the real. They were not lying to their customers. They did not omit an official Nintendo/Rare logo from the advertisements. Sony are pretending to be 15 year olds in the real world to try and make people think that teenagers think the PSP is cool.
...is that awful rap! Bleurch!
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Is it really necessary to bash this? I mean.. is anybody here going to run out and buy a PSP right this minute because of this deceptive marketing campaign?
Obviously not because we don't need some half-ass blog to tell us that a PSP is cool or uncool, we can make that judgement ourselves. Like someone else here said, the only people who will actually pay ANY attention to this are the people who are already looking to buy a PSP for x-mas and want to share their desire for the PSP with others. Anybody else will spend about 10sec. on the site and move on to something else.
Anybody ignorant enough to suddenly have the urge to buy a PSP after looking at that blog should probably go ahead and throw away their money on it, since I doubt they'd think of anything better to spend it on.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
But the grandparent post did not excuse Apple or Nintendo. He did not praise the DataDyne campaign (something I was not aware of, and probably the GP was also not) - and you have yet to show us where Apple has ever done any similarly deceptive advertising.
... and then they built the supercollider.
They were not lying to their customers. They did not omit an official Nintendo/Rare logo from the advertisements
I do not see one mention in those articles of Nintendo/Rare logos on the site at the time. Not to mention, the PSP logos are all over alliwantforxmasisapsp.com or whatever it is. In both cases, neither company comes out and says "We're company X" anywhere. Here's the link to the web archive. Show me where the website takes on the Nintendo Logo before March 2, 2000 (the date of the articles).
I agree with everyone that the attempt by Sony is lame. I don't agree with those that say that this is a criminal stunt by Sony and deserves punishment in some way.
http://zi.zipatoni.com/PspXmas/blog/ umm . . . well there goes plausible deniability
Damn, I had points yesterday.
This should be a +3ish troll, not a 0 troll.
Someone should probably throw a point of insightful in there for good measure.
~= scwizard =~
Did anyone else read that as something like "Allivant Formaxis Isapsis"? Am I the only one whose Greek is sufficiently mediocre to not always read an English "X" as a Greek letter "Chi"? :P
(In other words, yes, stupid, but remember the "white and black" PSP ads, or the mock-graffiti? Being surprised as Sony doing something underhanded to market the PSP is like being surprised that the bright yellow thing came up again this morning...)
The fact that this is only scored at 3 makes me feel very, very old...
Is anyone saying it was a criminal act? I see lots of people saying it was unethical, that it is sleazy, and that perhaps such behavior should be banned. I don't see anyone saying it actually is criminal.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Except that it's not declared as advertisement. If you have an ad in a paper, it has a little "ad" bar above it to make sure people know it's not editorial content. Ads in TV are clearly identified as such. Even product placement is identified as such.
This here? That's not an ad, that's just a lie.
So, how much did Sony pay you to post your comment? Why should I trust your comment, knowing that Sony will do crap like this?
That doesn't matter. If Sony is doing this, how do I know your very comment wasn't paid by Sony? I don't suppose everything they do is that stupid, and I want to know whether I'm looking at a comment (or a blog, or a web site) from an actual person, or at an ad from Sony disguised as one of these things.
I feel a disturbance in the force heading straight for Bony!!
... and another very different is being deceitful and trying to cover your tracks.
In one situation we should be able to discern how the marketing is working and make informed decisions based on that.
In the other situation we are being manipulated and lied to.
If you can't see the difference you must work in marketing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Somebody gave it to me as a present. So there genius.
I have not bought a single track from iTunes for example. You can't make DRM trendy and cool, no matter how you present it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
At least on TV here in the UK, adverts must state that they are adverts. Even the infomercials on late at night have "commercial presentation". Any ad that is designed to pretend to be a show ends up looking stupid.
Of course, there is a line to be drawn here. Personally, I think it should be further away from the consumers. I'd like to see e.g. review shows state that the manufacturer provided the item and so on. The best review publications are those that buy the items themselves and can say what they like. If they aren't free to say "this sucks"*, then the review is pointless.
* funny story; the BBC car show Top Gear reviewed a particular car and gave it a terrible review. The story goes that the editor received a letter stating that the car manufacturer will be ceasing advertising on the - commercial-free - network. Missed the point methinks.
Oh, they do get negatively criticized* now and then, it just gets drowned in the groupthink and modded down into oblivion. Posting anti that might be critical of Apple always results in this. At best you can hope for a mod-war if enough people agree with you. I've had posts that have been moderated 15+ times on the subject.
(* the word criticism doesn't necessarily always mean bad review, to critique something is to review it and offer your viewpoint, good or bad.)
I've long since suspected that Apple have astroturfers on Slashdot. The views many Apple "fans" use are just too consistent. It's like you are fighting against a co-ordinated group of users that stick together and highlight posts for each other. The same phrases keep on coming through. Lets face it, if you wanted to astroturf for Apple, this is a great place to start.
If Sony can do it, we can too :)
http://www.alliwantforxmasisaps3.com/
Here is my home page.
Read the bottom of the page on may 11th 2000 "DATADYNE is a fictional company and is not affiliated with or related to any real business entity."
The IGN article was written in March 2000. That would make the notice addition a little after the effect wore off, similar to what Sony just did to its page.