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Worst marketing campaigns in the history of gaming (or: wtf Sony!?)

D

Deku

Banned
Takao said:
I'm fairly certain some of the ones you guys we're posting are fakes, but it's pretty telling on Sony's part that someone could take them as real.

Anyways, here's another poor PSP commercial with a guy lurching over another guy taking a piss.
Click to expand...

Do you mean the graffitti?

Also some of the ones being pointed out, including this one, aren't terrible. But they are being painted in a terrible light because Sony did not succeed in their goal and there was a cloud of scandal around their PSP ads.

The one quoted as well as some of the high concept stuff would pass if the product was successful. A lot of the PS1/PS2 ads had a similar flavour and no one batted an eye.

But that sort of goes back to 'marketing' defined by gamers as only the visual marketing media and print ads, getting the blame for when a product fails.

Remember when Sony could do no wrong with their marketing?
 
D

drohne

hyperbolically metafictive
Jazzem said:
There's far too many of these :lol

Special mention must go to the Game Gear ones. Insulting potential members of you audience?
Click to expand...

oh come on, these ads are arguably the height of XTREME 90s VIDEOGAME ADVERTISING FOR TWEENS -- the idea is not 'only fat morons play gameboy,' it's 'stop playing gameboy and you will no longer be associated with these fat morons.'

i'm also going to come out of the closet as a fan of a lot of the weird artsy 'how is this even advertising anything' euro sony ads (of course this advertising strategy was a little more appropriate when they were selling a market-dominating product that hardly needed to be advertised)
 
S

SouthernDragon

Member
Fucking terrible marketing.

The people who designed the aesthetics for the PSP and the PS3 must have thrown their hands up at the marketing for those products.

Seriously, what the fuck. Those two must have sold on sheer brand power alone for a few years.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I actually kind of enjoy the creepy Sony commercials like the baby one. They sure as shit aren't good marketing but I think they're kind of cool. The squirrels, Marcus, etc are flat out terrible though.
 
R

rhino4evr

Member
The entire "Play It Loud" campaign from Nintendo in the mid 90s was really embarrassing. I would never match The butthole surfers as Donkey Kong Country
 
R

REMEMBER CITADEL

Banned
Jazzem said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP04XzC-GkA
Click to expand...

Was that a young Ethan Suplee?

Anyway, some amazing commercials there, I rea-

ChronicleX said:
I remember seeing this on TV when the PS2 first came out, I always thought it was a Penguin, turns out its a Duck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h28Kbdfmvbk

I mean seriously.. WTF....
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:eek:


Takao said:
From the creator of PSP's annoying guy came this PS2 commercial. The dude eats a Dual Shock 2, and other accessories...
Click to expand...

8O
 
J

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
EmCeeGramr said:
It's been years and I don't think there's every been a definitive conclusion. When it first came out people were lambasting that commercial as proof Nintendo had finally lost it, or defending it as some kind of sarcastic parody of PSAs.
Click to expand...
You guys make me feel old. Anybody who watched saturday morning cartoons in the 80s sat through hours of these.

The Super Mario Sunshine ad was a spoof on the Woodsy the Owl PSAs. The ad was a brilliant spoof and very well done but it backfired mainly because the target audience was too young to remember them.

d3c73fe4.jpg

"Give a hoot! Don't Pollute!"
 
A

_Alkaline_

Member
The Sunshine ad is supposed to be bad, isn't it? It's a parody of the environmental owl ads from years back.

Shame no one got it. When you understand the context, it's actually really quite funny.
 
E

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Its unbearable reading all the Sony responses in this thread, they're all worse than I expect them to be.

Seriously, what the hell Sony? Everything PSP and PS3 aside from Kevin Butler has been absolutely atrocious.
 
O

OnimaruXLR

Member
Deku said:
Remember when Sony could do no wrong with their marketing?
Click to expand...

Nope. Polygon Man and Sonia teaming up to emasculate me definitely didn't strike me as buyer-friendly behavior.

I have to ask with some of these ads: is advertising in Europe super fucked up or is it just Sony?

Also, while Nintendo had it's fair share of trash, especially in print, I remember them as having better commercials than everyone else. Case in point.

Also, all the Dreamcast stuff was super hot. Man...EVERYTHING about that console was Sega getting their act together too late.
 
X

Xavien

Member
OnimaruXLR said:
Nope. Polygon Man and Sonia teaming up to emasculate me definitely didn't strike me as buyer-friendly behavior.

I have to ask with some of these ads: is advertising in Europe super fucked up or is it just Sony?

Also, while Nintendo had it's fair share of trash, especially in print, I remember them as having better commercials than everyone else. Case in point.

Also, all the Dreamcast stuff was super hot. Man...EVERYTHING about that console was Sega getting their act together too late.
Click to expand...

Occasionally a weird commercial shows up, but really mostly Sony.
 
E

exwallst

Member
How does EA keep a straight face with their Dead Space 2 marketing? "Your mom hates this game" What 17+ year old cares about what his mom thinks?
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
exwallst said:
How does EA keep a straight face with their Dead Space 2 marketing? "Your mom hates this game" What 17+ year old cares about what his mom thinks?
Click to expand...

It's probably pretty easy for them to do when they look at its sales.
 
F

feel

Member
I came in here to mention these ps3/psmove ads with baby heads on adult bodies walking around and doing random stuff, I keep seeing here in latin-america lately that creep the hell out of me, only to find tons of muuuuuch worse stuff posted.. wtf sony indeed
 
G

gerg

Member
Messi said:
Suprised no one remembers this sony gem,

psp_white.jpg
Click to expand...

The thing about this advert is that graphically it is a gem. It looks amazing. Unfortunately, though, it gets caught up in a lot of shallow claims about it being racist or whatnot.
 
J

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
Jive Turkey said:
You guys make me feel old. Anybody who watched saturday morning cartoons in the 80s sat through hours of these.

The Super Mario Sunshine ad was a spoof on the Woodsy the Owl PSAs. The ad was a brilliant spoof and very well done but it backfired mainly because the target audience was too young to remember them.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb177/jiveturkey06/d3c73fe4.jpg
"Give a hoot! Don't Pollute!"
Click to expand...
Yoshi Island's exploding fat man commercial had a similar problem. I remember when it was released there being a number of complaints about the commercial's content, specifically from moms. The commercial's gag is lifted straight out of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, but the target audience wouldn't know that, nor would too many of their parents. Though, I'm sure all of Nintendo's college intern thought it was brilliant.
 
R

Raxus

Member
Starting with the launch of the PS3, PSP, and ending once Kevin Butler 'took over'. Too much crap to post. Sony must have had to fire several advertising teams.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Raxus said:
Starting with the launch of the PS3, PSP, and ending once Kevin Butler 'took over'. Too much crap to post. Sony must have had to fire several advertising teams.
Click to expand...

In late 2007 they dropped the ad company (TBWA) that was responsible for most of the responses in this thread. Even though they did a lot of crazy shit they still put together one of the greatest game commercials ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bqq38WZctA
 
F

Flying_Phoenix

Banned
The lack of Japanese Xbox 360 commercials is disturbing.

exwallst said:
How does EA keep a straight face with their Dead Space 2 marketing? "Your mom hates this game" What 17+ year old cares about what his mom thinks?
Click to expand...

A lot of people who buy these games are junior high and high school kids.
 
F

Freezie KO

Banned
A lot of these are awful. But to me, the ones that elevate themselves from awful to a true level of offensive are the PSP ones. Stupid racial stereotypes like Mexican dustballs? White vs black PSP portrayed as a race war? Fake graffiti (an inherently anti-establishment artform) designed to trick the consumer? A "viral" PSP Xmas campaign that, again, is designed to trick the consumer?

Debate the Marcus ads if you must, but that campaign is twenty times better than the stuff at the beginning of this handheld gen. The ads were either racially suspect or so condescending as to believe the consumer could be tricked.
 
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