Since the summer Sony has been misstepping left and right. Their latest entry was a flog with the help of Zipatoni, which everyone (Tailrank, DigitalBattle, Joystiq, Game|Life, and EvilAvatar) was talking about this week. The flog was put up at the start of the week and by Wednesday everyone had figured out it was a flog, simply because of the Whois information. Here’s the Blog posting from All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP, after they got found out:
“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. – Sony Computer Entertainment America.”
The effort that Sony and Zipatoni put into this “campaign” reminds me of an old saying I thought up while standing in line at 4am for a Nintendo Wii. If you’re not going to try, then don’t even get started, which is exactly how I feel about this “campaign”. The absolute lowest common denominator was chosen and executed on. If this was Sony’s idea then Zipatoni should have stepped up and said something. I seriously believe their reputation was hurt by this. However, if Zipatoni brought the idea to Sony, then that’s worse because they should know better. You don’t try and be something your not and try to change the rules of online engagement. Much like an e-mail, once you put it online it’s their for life. Next-Gen did get a responce but it’s the typical “we’ve no comment” for this screw up. I’m still left with more questions then answers in this situation.
What does it say about a company who disregards the rules of online communication?
How does this reflect on our industry’s image?
What is the future of online PR?
Will the FTC actually try and regulate this matter?
Does anyone outside of the PR, marketing and media community actually care about this incident? Gamers may cry but I know all to well we have short-term memory. I’m not sure what the answers are and maybe only time will tell. However, I think things are changing so fast these days that the long-term effects won’t be felt for some time to come.
[Update 1] Now we’ve a spoof blog coming out of the wood works.
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