PlayStation Portable - Controversial Advertising Campaigns

Controversial Advertising Campaigns

• Sony admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for the PSP in seven major U.S. cities including New York City, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The mayor of Philadelphia has filed a cease and desist order and may file a criminal complaint. According to Sony, it is paying businesses and building owners for the right to spraypaint their walls.
• In 2006, Sony ran a poster campaign in England. One of the poster designs with the slogan "Take a running jump here" was removed from a Manchester Piccadilly station tram platform due to concerns that it might encourage suicide.
• In July 2006, news spread of a billboard advertisement released in the Netherlands which depicted a white woman holding a black woman by the jaw, saying "PlayStation Portable White is coming." Some found this to be racially charged due to the portrayal of a white woman subjugating a black woman. Two other similar advertisements also existed, one had the two women facing each other on equal footing in fighting stances, while the other had the black woman in a dominant position on top of the white woman. The stated purpose of the advertisements was to contrast the white and black versions of its game console available for sale. These ads were never released in the rest of the world, and were pulled from the Netherlands after the controversy was raised. Despite having been released only in the Netherlands, the advertisement gathered international press coverage. Engadget notes that Sony may have hoped to "capitalize on a PR firestorm".
• Sony came under scrutiny online in December 2006 for a guerrilla marketing campaign hoping to go viral, for the console, with advertisers masquerading as young bloggers who desperately wanted a PSP. The site was registered to and created by the St. Louis, Missouri, advertising firm Zipatoni on behalf of Sony before it was taken down.