I realise this has been reported by a lot of people already, but I had to link it here as a paragon of corporate cynicism. I can’t believe Sony actually thought they’d get away with trying to engineer a viral marketing campaign for the PSP using fake blogs and YouTube postings. They tried to wipe all trace of it from the net after it was exposed but of course someone has posted a copy. Caution, it’s excruciatingly bad. It’s also about as convincing as William Shatner’s toupee. Boy, those suits must be so totally removed from reality if they thought that would hold water for more than 10 seconds.
*Incredulous update as I read more about this – what’s even funnier (in a sad, desperate kind of way) is the initial rebuttals by the stooge ‘bloggers’. Such as:
“You all is haters tymes 4. Dis is lee-git. Don’t know why youse thinks this is a schill. Are site was registered through an external provider. We don’t work for sony. And for all you dissin’ my skillz I’m down for a one on one rap off or settling it street stylez if you feel me playa. Teh. I own a Nintendo DS and I love it. I would still like a PSP for shizzle. But the DS is just as solid.” – ‘cousinpete’
I’m speechless. I can only guess that the people that wrote this thought Ali-G was a genuine Yoof reporter. Read more for yourself, if you can stand to risk your sanity.
December 15th, 2006 at 4:43 am
If anyone missed the very bad rap video, is a working link. To me the sight looked a sight too polished to be made by people with that level of grammar.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Huh Im so surprised that Sony was caught out here. I mean, that bloke’s come-back post was very authentic, almost like a genuine uncouth cyber-youth from the current generation of netwise surfers.
Have you seen that advert (Natwest maybe?) on telly with the bankers rapping and giving a CD out to students who open accounts with them? The guys in Sony’s marketing department are getting desperate just like these bankers in the advert. They are so out of touch that it makes you wonder if the Sony marketing guys are in fact genius’ and this is just another ploy to increase publicity? A double bluff, if you will.
Word.
December 15th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Hm.. I wonder what sort of buffoon actually came up with this, and then what sort of greater buffoon implemented it.
Faked viral marketing is a very risky proposition, and historically it has a high failure rate. I remember “I love bees”, but that wasn’t trying to fake a grass roots movement. That was more like advertising via alternate reality.
But honestly, the implementation is horribly obvious that it is fake. He wants a PSP for christmas, yet he has a face plate for a PSP in his hand! Obviously he already has access to one. Plus, the stage is just too much. The lighting, the glitz, it all screams “staged”. Were they trying to get caught? I’ve heard the expression “There is no such thing as bad publicity”, but sometimes you really have to wonder if that concept is truly universally applicable.
I’ve never had any interest in PSP, so it doesn’t really matter to me. Everything I ever heard about them was that they are a complete pain in the ass to program for, complete with overly crippled hardware. PS3 looks more promising, but I’m going to guess that XBox360 is going to continue to kick its rear for quite some time. Isn’t the Wii already doing at least as well as PS3? That’s pretty bad news for Sony, considering that I heard the Wii was much less of an investment for Nintendo than PS3 was for Sony.
December 15th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Wow, the lame Zipatoni ad agency is getting plenty of terds in their christmas stockings this year, aren’t they?
Here’s what Sony should go wtih: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z29dYUXoloI&mode=related&search=
December 15th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
lmao! MC Cousin-Geoff’s-Plumber for the win
December 16th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
@Dan: Fantastic! Thanks for posting that one
January 20th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
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