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Sony PSP Viral Marketrs caught REd-handed

S

soundwave05

Member
Just the other day my emo girlfriend sent me on a wild scavenger hunt across the hippest parts of town ... using my PSP with 1 GB memory stick .... oh Sony :lol
 
F

fatigues_gasolini

Member
Chichikov said:
I guess the problem that this shit is wrong.
if you abandoned for a second the retarded "my team vs. your team" approach to the so called console wars, I’m sure you’ll be able to see it too.
At least I hope so.
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I see that its wrong and stupid. Sony is never good with this stuff, just like the psp graffiti thing.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Is viral marketing even legal? Always sounds like shady business to me.

Props for the ****ing hilarious video though - probably deterred more people from the PSP than helped to convince them. :D
 
R

Rorschach

Member
soundwave05 said:
Just the other day my emo girlfriend sent me on a wild scavenger hunt across the hippest parts of town ... using my PSP with 1 GB memory stick .... oh Sony :lol
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:lol Hate that damn commercial.
 
T

Triz

Member
Stinkles said:
Yo homes I heard Ho-Hizzle three-zizzle is the shizzle fo rizzle. Bow down now. Oh yeah yo what up wit PS3 720p bein all up in the non-nativizzle on the blu ray dizzle? That's wack. Peace.
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Dammit Stinkles...I spit Mountain Dew on my keyboard:lol :lol :lol
 
T

Tellaerin

Member
GhaleonEB said:
David Manning was a serious critic. Honest.
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It's not like Sony's the only company to resort to shilling and astroturfing. MS is definitely no slouch in that department. (My all-time fave is probably still the astroturf campaign that had dead people writing in to support MS.) Nintendo's the only hardware manufacturer that doesn't seem to have a history of incidents like this (as far as I can find, anyway), though I couldn't tell you whether that means that they're cleaner than the competition or they've just been better at not getting caught. Between all the FUD and campaigns like this, it's gotten to the point where you pretty much can't trust anything you read on the net anymore.

That said, I have to agree that this campaign is particularly bad. It's not the fact that it was done that I find insulting, but that it was done so poorly. Even if this campaign hadn't been outed for what it was, the feebleness of it would have probably been enough to further blunt consumer interest.

Sony really ought to just spend the next year or so getting back to basics. No confrontational advertising, no shilling or astroturfing, no stupid statements from the top brass for the media to have a field day with. Just hire an agency to produce some straightforward ads that'll get people excited about their gaming products (without the halfassed attempts at generating controversy - the PSP ad with the black and white model comes to mind), avoid making direct comparisons to the competition (because in the current climate, critics will find some way to make them backfire), and have your execs take a page from the Perrin Kaplan school of interviews. If they take an approach like that, they might be able to defuse some of the animosity that seems to be building towards them of late.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
meltpotato said:
care to provide a link to that?
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Yeah, I've seen the "but Microsoft does it too" line a bunch of times in this thread, but I haven't seen any links. The stuff like ilovebees was above-board since everyone knew what that was for. What's MS done? I'm asking partly for proof, and partly because if they did then I'm sure it's hilarious and I'd like the laugh.
 
M

Mar

Member
Aristotlekh said:
h@y guyz i m a k1d in college and i LUV the PSP it rox i luv the 16:9 aspect ratio screen for sho'in my mad rap skillz to my pimp homies, i luv the Memory Stick Pro Duo support for all my FUXING SWEET rap music that the youth culture including myself luvs, i luv the umd support cos it gives fuxing sweet developers 1.8 gigabytes of storage space for creating surprisingly large games for a handheld system, and i luv the sleek form factor !! i also luv the GAMES including Rockstar Leeds' own Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories & Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories (R) as well as Konami's Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops (R) !! it ROX and these madhat pimp shreddin homies on the youtube KNOW WHERE IT IS AT YOU DIG ME

fo sho
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That was awesome.
 
B

Brak

Member
That's a little bit of a shot at the ol' ego. Does Sony really view videogame customers like this? I think I need to go read a book.
 
M

meltpotato

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Yeah, I've seen the "but Microsoft does it too" line a bunch of times in this thread, but I haven't seen any links. The stuff like ilovebees was above-board since everyone knew what that was for. What's MS done? I'm asking partly for proof, and partly because if they did then I'm sure it's hilarious and I'd like the laugh.
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MGS is well known for their viral efforts, but they are distinctly different from this. to be honest, this really isn't "viral" in hte pure sense. I'd feel more comfortable calling it paid brand advocacy.

And for those that havent really heard mucha bout this, there are a number of firms that do specifically this. The movie industry is VERY involved in this strategy.

also, what's up with everyone dinging the writer for using "web 2.0"? that is the standard term for user-generated web content.
 
B

Blame!

Member
Cyan said:
Ok, so this viral marketing is pathetic and irritating, but let's criticize the article for a moment.

Just from the first paragraph. Is this a staff writer from the Guardian? Terrible.
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i am not such a smart gamer. (since i never read much)so can you explain why the stuff you bolded are so bad grammatically? it reads fine to me?
 
T

Tellaerin

Member
meltpotato said:
MGS is well known for their viral efforts, but they are distinctly different from this. to be honest, this really isn't "viral" in hte pure sense. I'd feel more comfortable calling it paid brand advocacy.

And for those that havent really heard mucha bout this, there are a number of firms that do specifically this. The movie industry is VERY involved in this strategy.

also, what's up with everyone dinging the writer for using "web 2.0"? that is the technical term for user-generated web content.
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The terms you're looking for are 'shilling' and 'astroturfing', and as I pointed out a couple of posts back, MS has a long history of such campaigns. (Do a search for Microsoft shilling astroturfing on Google. The first hit is a good place to start.) Trying to paint this as something only Sony does is disingenuous at best.
 
M

meltpotato

Member
Tellaerin said:
The terms you're looking for are 'shilling' and 'astroturfing', and as I pointed out a couple of posts back, MS has a long history of such campaigns. (Do a search for Microsoft shilling astroturfing on Google. The first hit is a good place to start.) Trying to paint this as something only Sony does is disingenuous at best.
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wait... wasn't the majority of my post illuminating that this is something is being done by many companies and that it has actually grown into its own industry?

also, i mentioned specifically the MGS group which, to my knowledge, does not have a history of this sort of brand advocacy. (that certianly doesn't mean they havent) And that was in responce to multiple posts claiming as much but without any specific reference.
 
B

Blame!

Member
Cyan said:
It's not so much bad grammar as poor writing. I expect more from mainstream publications than from random posters on message boards.
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well i guess im looking for you to educate me by explaining why it's such poor writing. :)
 
J

jarosh

Member
peeasspee.gif
 
J

jarosh

Member
Wario64 said:
lol jarosh

but no dancin on ladder gif?
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eh, with only 1 gig of ram it's annoying enough to make a 150 frames gif.

Jive Turkey said:
Seriously...If I had any interest in a PSP this crap would have killed it.
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that's kind of a stupid thing to say, don't you think
 
S

Sho Nuff

Banned
You would have to be an enormous moron to believe those videos were anything BUT viral marketing.

HEY SONY INSTEAD OF WASTING MONEY ON CRAP LIKE THIS, DROP THE PRICE
 
T

Tellaerin

Member
meltpotato said:
wait... wasn't the majority of my post illuminating that this is something is being done by many companies and that it has actually grown into its own industry?

also, i mentioned specifically the MGS group which, to my knowledge, does not have a history of this sort of brand advocacy. (that certianly doesn't mean they havent) And that was in responce to multiple posts claiming as much but without any specific reference.
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I replied the way I did because I saw this exchange beween you and GhaleonEB that boiled down to 'everyone says MS does this too, but I don't see it', and sandwiched in the middle was my post on the subject, which seemed to be getting overlooked. I wasn't sure if that was accidental or by design, so I got a little irked. :)

As far as just what the MGS group has done in this department compared with the rest of the company, I couldn't tell you - I haven't been looking. But since Sony detractors are ready to invoke the spectre of 'David Manning', and don't draw any distinction between the actions of Sony Pictures and the conglomerate as a whole, then it shouldn't matter for MS either, should it? Fair's fair. That's all I'm getting at.
 
B

Blame!

Member
Cyan said:
Ok, here's the 1 minute edit:

Gamers all over the web are shaking their fists at Sony's latest viral marketing campaign . Piggybacking on the YouTube craze, the company has hired "consumer activation" firm Zipatoni to create fake videos and blog entries to generate interest in the flagging PlayStation Portable handheld machine. These videos and blogs featured people pretending to be PSP fans talking up their favorite console. The so-called fans were quickly uncovered by SomethingAwful.com's dedicated base as shills; facades to disguise corporate mouthpieces.

Ok, that took more like a minute and a half. Still.
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ok well your paragraph reads about the same if not worse. :lol

like you say the word "CRAZE" is way better than "BONANZA" ??
 
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