Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

11 Responses to “The Sony PSP Scandal - Put things into context before shouting your mouth off”  

1. 1 Tom Jul 11th, 2006 at 9:38 am

   Yeah, but if there was no controversy, the ad campaign wouldn’t have been talked about all over the interweb!

2. 2 Damien Mulley Jul 11th, 2006 at 9:47 am

   If people took the time to put things into context before shouting their mouth off, maybe we wouldn’t have so much controversy.

   Ah, but is it not about understanding your audience, not demanding they understand you? You have about 5 seconds, maybe less to get peoples attention with an ad.

   If a small but vocal part of your audience is going to come out and accuse you of racism then you have to be ready for it or utilize it in some way. There’s plenty of proven ways of generating controversy to get attention but you have to generate the right controversy and be ready for it.

3. 3 Piaras Jul 11th, 2006 at 1:28 pm

   There’s a difference between being controversial and grabbing people’s attention. If you look at most of Sony’s campaigns, they always tend to be more artistic than controversial, i.e. The Third Place. Hence I don’t think they set out to make race an issue like Benetton would have.

4. 4 fmk Jul 11th, 2006 at 2:26 pm

   scandal? what scandal? nonbody told me nothing about no scandal until i saw this post!

   the interesting interpretation of the third and final image you show is that the standard black psp is gonna beat the shite out of the lippy white psp, which is just a big girl’s blouse. so i think i’ll pass on going out to buy the new product …

   btw - at a guess, what is the gender breakdown on psp users? would it be fair to guess it’s a male-dominated environment? in which case, why the need for hot girl-on-girl inter-racial s m lesbian action in the advertising? why not two guys getting into a catfight? or. better still, show us the bloody product!

5. 5 McGrathy Jul 11th, 2006 at 3:22 pm

   The images as a collective are contentious, but each image on its own is controversial. Is it being a little churlish to remind Sony that each billboard placement is consumed as a single entity, therefore each image/advert/message must stand alone as being indicative of the entire campaign? Advertising is relying on an instant delivery of a message after all, and it would be silly to rely on your audience having to see every other billboard for context to be created.

   That said, if Sony really, really wanted controversy, all they needed to do was add a comma to emphasise a racial threat, ‘Playstation Portable, White is coming’.

   S.

6. 6 Christina Brasher Jul 11th, 2006 at 5:16 pm

   I believe that everything that is done today will offend someone. It is an advertiser’s obligation to try and not arouse any negative emotions.

   There is this tendency to create something that will be talked about. That is what advertising is all about. If you create an eye-catching ad, then people will talk. I mean look at all of us discussing this PSP ad. Whether or not it offends us, the fact is we are discussing it. I myself am not a gamer, so I am not their target audience. As fmk stated, the audience would probably be males ages 12-25. Of course you have those few men that cannot give up video games at the age of 60.

   Beside the point, advertisers want to make a stir. They want to get their name out there and get talked about. I mean look at the company Go Daddy.com. It took them 14 tries to get a Super Bowl ad that was not demeaning and distasteful. A PR tactic to get people to talk about the domain names that they offer, or just bad taste? Whatever the reason, they were the topic of conversation by many media stations. Who knows the outcomes, but all-in-all advertisers want their products out there in discussion because that is what gets products sold.

7. 7 Jon Silk Jul 12th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

   I agree that it is offensive.

   But NOT because of the picture, OR the sentiment.

   The company has used the term ‘white’ (which is a shade) and then created an assocation with the word as a descriptive statement on race (white, as in caucasian). This is where the offensive part occurs.

   And anyway, there doesn’t need to be a comma. The capital letter does the trick just fine.

   http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-02/25/xin_170202251648429315428.jpg

8. 8 Michael Morton Jul 12th, 2006 at 6:16 pm

   I agree with Damien.

   It is the ad agency’s responsibility to understand the audience. The audience should never be expected to understand the agency.

   Bill board ads, by their very nature, are expected to be a stand alone piece. I can totaly understand viewers confusion. To me, this is just another bad decision by Sony. They seem to be working overtime to offend everyone these days…

9. 9 mikey Jul 18th, 2006 at 12:42 pm

   Hmm… I wonder, would it still be a scandle if it where just the black girl beating up on the white? would it still be an issue then?

   before you start beating me down - I am not white. I am me.

10. 10 Gino Jul 18th, 2006 at 1:01 pm

    Surely the ad agency, expected this sort of response from the ad! We live in a very “PC” society! Quite frankly an ad like this was very risque!! there are many other ways to market this product without crossing the line. A line which the ad designers might regret crossing!
    Sony should think more when hiring ad designers!

    That was a bad move that leaves me to wonder whether Sony has ethics at all!

11. 11 Portraits Aug 18th, 2006 at 2:54 am

    The ad agency was expecting this from those images.

    People invest millions into these campaigns, and the people putting them together think foremost about the “viral” impact of their campaign.

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