Electronics super-retailer, and winner of the latest format war, Sony, has had their share of successful and controversial marketing campaigns in the past. Recently Sony reportedly hired Zipatoni to conduct viral marketing in the form of bogus blog endorsements, which were meant to pump up the demand for their Game Boy-busting Play Station Portable (PSP). Joe Interwebs eventually uncovered this ruse, causing Sony to extinguish the Trojan “All I Want for XMas” site. Another recent guerrilla campaign for the PSP involved Sony hiring graffiti artists to create spray paint advertisements in cities including New York, Philadelphia and San Fransisco. This campaign also went down in flames.
As much as we hate it when corporations try to pull a fast one with such viral campaigns, they have to be commended for their creative efforts. Without such attempts to thwart consumer defences, we wouldn’t be able to laugh at ridiculous campaigns such as the famous false identification of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Moonites as part of a terrorist bomb plot in Boston. Perhaps such mishaps are proof that marketing firms should stick to good old fashioned print ads, which brings us back to the PSP. I was amazed by the creative graphics behind their foreign “In Small Doses” series. It goes to show, you don’t have to break the law to get people to pay attention to your products.