Here’s some additional perspectives on the Sony
stuff.  But first a few comments from us:

1. Do we think that Sony
“wins” with the campaign simply because we’re talking extensively about it on
the Wooster site?  Absolutely fucking not. Our coverage is about the subject of
advertising and graf colliding, not so much about Sony specifically. This type
of coverage does not sell PSPs. And if it does, all the power to them.  Then
yes, their campaign was effective. We have no reason to want Sony to sell less
PSPs. That’s not our argument. But again, does this add to the eyeballs that
will see the campaign? Yes. Does it sell units? No fucking way. 

One
way to solve this - If you’ve bought a PSP, or intend to buy one, because of the
discussion of the campaign on this site, please raise your hand and send us an
email with a proof of purchase.

2. We agree with Bucky (see
below). For us, he’s exactly right and if Sony was smart they should have hired
him then, and they should still hire him now. Again, the problem here, for us
anyway, is not the ads themselves. It’s the fact that Sony made it appear that
the ads were mimic graffiti as if they were done illegally. They weren’t.  This
smacks, to us, of not knowing your audience well enough. If you are a fraud,
eventually you’ll be ratted out. That’s what happened here.  If they had stuck
to wheat pastes on construction sites, party stamps, and a few Tats Cru
commissions, things would have been fine. But instead they made it seem, at
first, that these ads were organic. They weren’t. Again, this is the mistake
that we find they made. Not the ads themselves. We actually like the ads. It’s
where and how they were placed that’s the problem.

3.  For those of
you who think that we’re spending too much time on this subject, we also don’t
agree. This site is about these issues as much as it is about the art itself. 
If you don’t debate the issues, what’s the point?

Okay, so here are
some more responses:

From
Nomad:

HERE?s Another proposal for you guys, concerning the
SON-Y PSP2 Discussion :

You all are doing exactly what SON - Y
expects you, to do. You discuss this shit-campaign , and name the product + the
company a hundred times on your page. The more that you spread this bullshit,
the more items they are going to sell. Got it ?


Fuck Sony +
anybody who wastes his time with computergames. If you catch those kids - break
their fuckin?Hands..

Peace (haha…)

From Bucky (on the Gothamist messageboards):

/>Gosh… so many of you commenters are just so blind and dumb. You completely
miss the point and then go off on your own tangents. There appear to be two
problems that bother both the folks at Wooster and Gothamist. It has to do with
the fact that the ads were designed to look like and mimic graffiti and street
art and that these ads are not going up on just spots usually reserved for wild
postings or what is commonly referred to as wheat pastings. They are going up in
spots that usually don’t sell or rent advertising space so that the ads appear
to be unsanctioned and/or illegal. The fact that Sony is trying to post these
ads up as if they were graffiti is the problem. If you don’t think there is a
thin line between getting it right and wrong well then you never worked on a
pitch and certainly never executed one. Advertising and marketing is a funny
business and a lot of common folk don’t really understand the small details and
dynamics it takes to actually make ideas and concepts that are cool, effective,
and don’t piss off the creative community they are trying to reach in the first
place. When dealing with youth culture (and graffiti especially) make sure you
know what the fuck you are doing. For example you can always hire ANIMAL as a
consultant (that for e.g. was a blatant plug) to review the “urban marketing”
campaign that has been created for your brand by some “urban marketing” company
in some ivory tower. But what bothers me on a bigger scale is that many brands
see graffiti as the only medium to reach kids in the city. It’s their golden
fleece of urban (not meaning black) communication and they often misuse it and
get it wrong. And for all that bullshit about ad blockers and stuff, again you
missed the point. Take it from someone who publishes an art and lifestyle
magazine with the tagline “cashing in on culture” that this is by no means a
wholesale refutation of advertising, sponsorship of art or culture, or the usual
predictable banter. It’s just about doing it right, period.   

/>From Fono:

Having watched
the Sony/PSP thing develop over the last few days, I thought I’d mention a
couple of things that have come to mind:

I have to admit I find the
way Sony has approached this to be rather baffling. At first, it seemed like
they were using street artists to undertake something illegal for them -
seemingly because they didn’t want to take the risk of putting the ads up using
their own people. Now, with the knowledge that the walls were actually RENTED,
it brings a whole new question to mind: why not just send out the ad agency’s
teaboy out with a bucket of paste? Why use street artists as hired decorators?
Ok, granted, some were sprayed, and that requires a particular set of skills
that are hard to fake - but even so they could have stuck to stencils and
posters… why involve street artists at all?

loving wooster for a
long time now, but have to give a short note on that PSP thing:

did
you realize that sony totally won with this campain?
your whole page is a
huge sony billboard now
you present their adverts
you present the
company’s name
and the company’s product

and your traffic might
not be that bad your visitors are the perfect PSP consumers as well…

/>should be enough to give a short story about it and link to a forum or
something and keep posting real streetart with no business aim on wooster…
/>or just ignore the whole thing…

just because a poster is pasted
somewhere “illegal” doesn’t make it art or street art…if i was sony i would
love to see what you are doing with my campain - even the defaced posters are
more reaction then a usual advert gets.

well, that’s it hope to see
that advert shit breaking down in ignorance.

props from germany
/>
What bugs me the most however, is that they’ve fostered a debate, and
here
we are, talking and considering them and their product. If you
subscribe to
the ‘There is no such thing as bad press’ school of thought,
then Sony’s
advertising agency have done their job. Bugger.

/>From Goods:

When you said
“...it smacks of corporate invasion of a space that they shouldn’t be in.” meaning
that the corporations have no right being there, don’t they have the same rights
as the street artists themselves? The “legit” street artists have no right being
there either, but that is the appeal to them? I don’t think the big wigs at Sony
are checking your site everyday, the people doing that are working in the ad
agencies. Some of whom I’m sure are even street artists themselves. Isn’t street
art about advertising to the masses anyway? Sure you may not be selling a
product at first, but many of the “legit” street artists that “make it” end up
selling their work. Whether it be in galleries or in an ad for a Vodka company.
You are getting your work and or name out there for other people to see and
hopefully appreciate. Otherwise a “true artist” would only make art for
themselves and show it to no one like Henry Darger. Sure this is not even close
to the scale of a company like Sony, but I really don’t see a difference here.
The streets are everyone’s, not just artists. I am not for or against it, and
this campaign is not going to get me to buy a psp or make me love or hate Sony
any more for it. I just don’t understand all of the complaints from artists.
Surely a street artist can identify an ad when they see one. I don’t even own a
psp and I recognized them in the campaign immediately when I saw them appearing
here in NYC(which was long after their initial campaign), and I’m
/>extremely surprised that the posters are not plastered with logo’s, product
shots, release dates, legal, etc. like most ads are. I’d say their campaign is a
huge success because a lot of people seem to be talking about it.