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November 18, 2005
Reactions to the Sony PSP Campaign
Comments on the SONY PSP ads:From John:
"Actually I noticed right away that the characters were playing with PSPs, but they are playing with them as if they are traditional toys: a puppet, a rocking horse, a jack-in-the-box etc. I thought it was a clever comment about how children today are playing with video games instead of with "real" toys. An updating of the old "why aren't the kids out playing with each other instead of watching TV and getting fat" attitude. So I was quite surprised to find that it's probably a Sony marketing campaign: that's surely not a message Sony wants to send. On the other hand, if it gets the PSP in people's heads, then it's working, I suppose. I approve because they're cool images, and I got to see them. I don't care how or why they got there."
From Ryan:
"It's hard to beieve that they are ad's based on what i've seen and what you have mentioned already. If you havent seen these, there are more on both sides of christy st. (i believe. if not somwhere around there) You see me and 2 friends were cruisin around downtown, and we spotted them thinking and talking after finally realising that they were psp's. I thought it was some new kat throwin up video game zomby type pieces, you know the character has swirly eyes and what not. I just figured it was another artist highlighting the "youth of today." Anyway, if an advertisment/campaign, i'm not to sure it is that effective. No branding? Everyone who knows of psp's probably either has one or doesnt want one. I dont know maybe i'am wrong. I dont evan like video games. (Sorry for the spelling i'am lacing my shoes.)"
From PERSPICACIOUS CRITIC:
"I think Sony PSP?s wheat paste campaign is a terrific idea. It conceptually and seamlessly integrates the Sony product with the characters. The cryptic and mysterious street art-style execution works well with the PSP brand particularly because Sony PlayStation has a history of mysterious, cryptic and effective advertising that doesn?t hit you over the head with overt, dumbed-down messages or slogans. And like the Time campaign (executed with Cope2) it?s a seemingly effortless and engaging fusion of advertising and street art, which will certainly get people talking (as we are right now). Finally if it can get past the folks at Wooster Collective.com (c?mon guys, no excuses!) it must be good!"
From Leo:
"I don't like it. bottom line, this IS for a video game gizmo, and although the characters are engaged in some sort of physical activity, (that's something american kids need a lot!) there's really nothing physical or creatively challenging in PSP video games. The ad agency would be really pleased to hear that people like you (who really know about street art) like it though. If they get to fool even the more knowledgeable ones, then, of course they got the kids. I worked as a creative director in advertising for over six years and I'm really glad I'm not a part of that world anymore."
From Elph:
"I thought when I first saw it it was kind of sayin that kids don't play anymore, they use the new toy the psp. Instead of running around playing and interacting like human beings, they use a plastic toy to run around in a virtual 3d world inhabit by 1's and zeros. If it was to be realistic, I thought the kids should be fatter. I don't know if it shows the psp in a good way though, as an ad campaign, it's very subtle. I suppose it cost hardly anything to do and like most of these things some guy had to go round, risking his ass, for a few bucks for a big company. If that's what it was for. That's my tuppence worth, oh yeah that JR video is one of the best things I've seen in years. A proper document."
From Saint X:
"Aaaaaarrrrggggghhh. I KNEW something wasn't right about the thing when I took a picture of it a couple weeks ago in san Francisco. Two kids. 6- feet tall. Right near the new freeway off-ramp. Looked way too clean to be real. Working for a branding firm, I'm adamantly opposed to this kind of infiltration by the big corporations. Equivalent in my mind with viral marketing stealth efforts to generate a buzz about a new product the unsuspecting masses by some cool, attractive shill on the company payroll. If a corporation has a brand that is truly of the style of the streets (skateboards, surf gear, etc.) I'm less inclined to bitch. When Sony does it, it feels like they're cheating. Wonder if the city's with Quality of Life laws are going to impose any fines or threaten to send any executives to the lockup!! Thanks for the tip-off!"
From Devin:
"Could you not see the small PSPs in their hands? Perhaps you could. Maybe you all enjoy them...I'd really like to know why. I mean, it's not as though fine art ever had to gain validity through commercial enterprises at least in regards to mass-produced consumer products (commissions are a different story), the people making ads (haring,etc) for Absolut were artists before they did work for them you know? I think for an art so tenuous as graffiti...to be forced into validity through marketing teams is sad and as a whole terribly limiting. Soon graffiti is just going to be viewed as another marketing technique or advertising style (if it already hasn't), not as a medium for proliferating art in a poignant way to large groups of people outside of galleries and sanctioned festivals. Is that what we want?"
Okay - So here's out take on the campaign: We kinda like it. But we also recognize the problems with it.
So first, here's why we like it: The ads are open for interpretation. And we like this a lot. They don't hit you over the head with a two-by-four. Knowing what goes on at an ad agency, the ads actually show restraint. There's no URL on the poster that leads you to a Sony website to "find out more." There's no Sony or PSP logo on it. It is what it is. And most importantly, the characters are cute and infectuous. The ads are what you want them to be.
But here's the big problem with them:
At the end of the day - being deceptive never fucking works. Ever. Doesn't Sony know that there's something called the Internet? The real lack of restraint is that the ads have been popping up all over the country. Because of sites like the Internet, the campaign gets exposed as a fraud by the same people they are trying to appeal to.
A few months back Time Magazine put up what was initially a stealth ad using artwork by Cope2. The difference in what Time did compared to what Sony did is that Time placed the Cope2 ad in only one location - on our street on Houston and Wooster in Soho in NYC.
There was only one ad. But Time knew that there's something called the Internet, and that word- of-mouth about that one ad could be more powerful then plastering the ad all over the city - or the country. Because of the Internet, the Time ad reached people all over the world. And the tone across the board was pretty positive. Even after it was exposed as an ad.
Through sites like Wooster, the Time ad got massive exposure. But what Sony did showed that they don't fully understand sites like the Wooster site. Didn't they realize that the campaign would be "self corrected" by real people who connect the dots between seeing the images in Philidelphia and then in New York and then in LA?
Guess not.
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