The Answer: Funky Fresh. The Question: What’s That Smell, And What Kind Of Air Do You Hope Comes Through The Window When You Throw The Ad Executive From Zipatoni Through It?
Back in college, I always knew who could score the quality "Boulder Canyon Gold," and who could score the stuff I could actually afford. I'm talking of course about herbal throat lozenges, and I resent any implication to the contrary. I'm a good girl dammit! *sob*
Anyhoo. It's like that in the world of electronic entertainment too. We always know who to look to for the absolute premium no-oregano-added bullshit, and all you need to do is walk over to the dorm across campus and knock on Sony's door.
But this isn't college anymore, and try as I might to make this site anything but "News That Matters," a newsworthy story occasionally beats its way through the ancient corner teletype, is ripped unceremoniously across the rusty serrated cutting thingy by my dreamy shirtless intern whose name I have forgotten but it starts with a G because well never you mind, and is then thrust into my donut powder encrusted fingers (oh Dolley Madison, how do you rescue our national treasures from pillaging Brits and still find time to bake the most delicious cellophane-entombed donuts in the whole gosh darned world?). Which can mean only one thing. Yes, it's yet another story of Sony proving that aside from child molestation, water boarding, car jacking, and knee-capping, there are few depths to which they will shamelessly sink in order to hawk their shit, and quite frankly I'm not so sure about the child molestation.
I would rail against the cluelessness that IS Sony marketing, but Tycho's comments bear re-blogging:
We need to distinguish between "viral" marketing and "guerilla" marketing. The reality is that no agency can create viral marketing, this is the sole domain of the consumer. Viral marketing is what happens when a campaign works - when we allow their message to travel via our own superefficient conduits. Perhaps it is entertaining on its own terms, divorced from the message. Perhaps it is a game or a story, like I Love Bees or other ARGs, where we take ownership in it. What distinguishes this from Guerilla Marketing is that we are aware of the message. When we are not aware of the message, or when the agents of the message misrepresent themselves, we call this "deception."
You see Sony, it's like this. It's only viral in the sense that it causes diarrhea, nausea, and in this case, lameness. And it's only "guerrilla" marketing in that is is so much like flinging poo that we are grateful that Steve Irwin isn't around to exclaim "krikey mate, that's a big fucking piece of poo!" (Um…'cause it's gorilla poo. Sounds a lot like "guerilla." See what I did there? Yeah.)
To add insult to injury, the web site, which is apparently the reach-around partner to the video (now pulled from Youtube, if anyone has a working link I'll post it), is now adorned with this…ummm…apology?
Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
Yes, too "funky fresh" indeed. As funky and fresh as the retro-dating of the post to wayback in November 28th. Fo shizzle.
And if you needed more evidence that Zipatoni probably isn't the funkiest or the freshest company you want doing your anything marketing, I rest my case.
Bonus feature: here's how to guerrilla market a console.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Thank god I nor anyone I know is associated with this campaign. When I first saw it, it literally made me twitch. The main reason was because it’s so poorly executed. As you can probably guess, being the evil marketer I am, my initial reaction to being sold to (of course, you could smell the corporateness of it from a mile away) wasn’t outrage but rather interest. In my mind, anything that tries to sell a product is automatically attached to the company. My motivation is to see how well they can do it.
For this campaign, my gut instinct is to blame the creative team for this rather than the account exec. It’s actually quite embarassing that the only thing they could come up with was this campaign, which just translates to a shameless plug with nothing that’s truly worthy of pass along or buzz. I would say part of the outrage from consumers is that feeling of “Are you kidding, you thought this would fool me?”.
I immediately compared this to mascot roommate which feels similar but just slightly better done. At least with this, you’re entertained and may or may not care if it’s “sponsored” by corporate. For me, that’s the critical element. Are you able to make me suspend disbelief and go along for the ride?
Re: Tycho’s comment. I disagree Viral can be agency manufactured. I’ve sat in many a meeting where the client wants something viral created. What I inevitably tell them is that you can’t make something viral but you can make something that you hope goes viral. The creation of the viral meme is frequently the agency’s role (Honda cog ad, Sony Bravia ad, Burger King Subservient Chicken, etc etc). Sure, they don’t make it viral but they make something so that it can turn viral. As important as consumers are in that role, they can’t take 100% of the credit.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
That’s what I got out of Tycho’s rant too. I liken it to the term blockbuster in the movie industry. A producer might set out to make a film that becomes a blockbuster, but calling it a blockbuster before it actually becomes one doesn’t make it so.
Apologies for trodding on your territory today, BN.
December 15th, 2006 at 4:38 am
The problem is one of distrust it seems. If agencies start to do this more often, to attempt to make things go viral. Will there come a point where you just aren’t sure if that is a real person your watching. Where your first thought becomes, “Is this an advertisement?” On TV we have that distinction mapped, adverts usually come in batches, and are obvious. Sure the best are worth talking about, but you usually say “Have you seen that Advert…?” We even recognise product placement in soaps and films easily now.
Humans are easily manipulated: we naturally believe in things when they are done convincingly. Then when someone reveals the trickyness we feel cheated. In this case the poor quality of the PSP video hinted at the trickyness. Made people feel wrong watching it (as Ken pointed out above ‘you really expect us to believe this?’).
I’m all for the need to say advertisement somewhere, on unobvious adverts. Maybe just at the opening. Yeah it’s a gray area between manipulating someone and being honest with them but it’s better to hover on the side of honesty. Take the siemen’s (I think) phone marketing thing. “Can you take a picture of me with my new phone.” or “Siemen’s is offering you a chance to have a play with this phone and tell us what you think.” I would probably come to the same decision about the phones features either way, but I would feel more irritated by the falseness of taking a picture. It’s all down to presented motivation not matching real motivation. It’s social engineering really.
/rant off
(It’s everywhere, like, I saw these blatant hello kitty and mango farming advertisements in this big deal thing I came accross on YouTube ;op)
December 15th, 2006 at 7:00 am
They’ve elevated outsourcing to a whole, new level. They’re willing to pay you $100k for $5m in new revenue… sure beats paying an American sales professional 5%.