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December 5, 2005
The Sony PSP Graffiti Campaign May Be A Watershed Moment in the Battle
Maybe it's just us, but as we start to receive photos from all over the country showing defaced Sony PSP ads, we're starting to think that the SonyPSP "graffiti" campaign may indeed be a watershed moment in the battle between graffiti culture and advertising.Why?
1. Because of it's scale.
With the Sony PSP ads, activists now have possibly hundreds of the same ads from one single campaign in many different cities to deface and to make a statement. To our knowledge, no brand has ever done as many ads like this for one single campaign. Collectively, as more and more of the graffiti ads get defaced, it makes for a very strong statement. Individuals are now joining a collective group.
2. Because it's Sony.
Obviously Sony is not a small company. Their size gives them the resources to pull off this campaign. Because it's Sony, more people will take up the fight to rebel against it (as we're seeing now)
3. Because of the Internet.
The internet brings activists quickly together. The internet assisted in the speed in getting the ads up, and now will assist in the speed of getting them defaced and taken down.
Will other brands now think twice before venturing into this area? If the protests continue, then yes, advertisers will think twice between trying to replicate something like this on the scale that Sony attempted.
One additional thing to note - it's not just Sony who are under the cross-hairs. Tats Cru seem to also to be under attack.
Tats Cru, reveared for their dedication to graffiti culture, is coming under strong fire this time for their participation in creating not only these ads but many other like them .
For us, all of this does not have simple black and white answers. To be honest, we go back and forth on this debate. At first we liked the Sony ads a bit. That was until we saw the massive scale of the campaign and the amount of sites that have been hit.
The Wired article has set things in motion. Because the Sony campaign is so huge, and because so many people have now joined the fight against it, this may indeed be a moment were the advertisers start to lose and the activists and artists start to win.
We'll continue to follow it.
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