Viral Advertising Is The Rage, But Sony Discovers That Faking A Viral Site Has Done Nothing But Earn It Scorn

Sony in the US went and faked a viral online site alliwantforxmasisapsp.com and when the company got challenged that maybe it was behind the site it denied it hands down. But by then the Internet army of games bloggers were on the warpath and it didn’t take long for Sony to buckle under the onslaught and admit it did wrong. The site has now been taken down.

And much to Sony’s dismay, as if the PR nightmare wasn’t enough, the company will now be always connected with an Internet term coined a few months back by a journalist for MediaPost: “Flog” – fake Web blog that looks as though it was created by consumers but in actual fact is produced by the company to, dare we say it, flog its wares.

The site included a video of “Cousin Pete” singing a rap song asking for a Playstation Portable handheld console (PSP) for Christmas – not to subtle. When some game bloggers got suspicious they wrote to the site administrator saying the thought the site was a fake, and got a reply, ”We don’t work for Sony. And for all your dissin’ my skillz I’m down for a one on one rap or settling it street stylez if you feels me playa.” We think that translates into Sony has nothing to do with this.

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But the games bloggers knew they were holding the short hairs and wouldn’t give up and finally Sony capitulated and admitted the ad company, Zipatoni, owned by Interpublic, had created the site for Sony Computer Entertainment US.

Why? Sony desperately wants to sells more PSPs. While it has some 20 million PSPs in use its new PlayStation3 only sold 200,000 units in its first month when the business plan called for 400,000. To boost sales it is planning to allow PSP owners in 2007 to download movies on the Internet to their PC and then be able to transfer the movie once to a PSP.

But those very people to whom the viral site was intended to encourage now have little good to say about Sony. Said one blogger,” Sony just sank to the lowest of the lowest level.” He added, “The lies don’t end there; fake comments have been posted at Kotaku only linking to the Youtube video to increase its pageviews.” Another blogger, PC Doctor, asked, “What is it with PR companies and fake blogs? They’re so desperate to join in with the rest of the blogosphere that honesty goes completely out of the window.”

And before Sony confessed, PC Doctor wrote, “What’s really sad about this blog is that the visitors have already figured out that it’s a fake blog and make this known through comments. What’s pathetic is that people behind the blog are still denying the fact with comments such as this gem: ‘yo where all hatas come from … juz cuz you ain’t feelin the flow of PSP dun mean its sum mad faek website or sum…youall be trippin.’” We think that translates into the site is not fake. One wonders whether Sony authorized Zipatoni to lie?

From those comments it’s obvious the real problem here is transparency. If a company wants to create a viral site that it hopes others will pass along then nothing wrong with that. But to lie about it? That crosses the line and is as good as an example of any why the FTC said recently that word-of-mouth marketing should be transparent.

Unfortunately Sony has a habit of crossing the line. Remember back to August, 2005, when Sony settled a $1.1 million class action suit based on its fabrication in 2001 of a fake film critic thoroughly praising three of its movies.

Sony is not the first big corporation to get caught-out like this. Companies don’t come much bigger than Wal-Mart, and in March it got “outed” for a blog site apparently written by people who like shopping at Wal-Mart but those people were being fed information by Edelman, Wal-Mart’s PR company.

With companies seemingly willing to do anything to protect the sanctity of their brand it is just amazing that these kind of fake blogs, without transparency, are continuing. When they are discovered that’s about as bad a public relations disaster as a company can have – why chance it? What ever happened to honesty is the best (PR) policy?

If those aren’t bad enough web problems, one can’t help but feel for Ford. The headline in Advertising Age says it all: “Ford denies Connection to Web-Concert Porno Promo”. Just the kind of publicity a family carmaker is after!

To quote from the article, “Control Room, formerly Network Live, produces and distributes live music concerts over the Internet, radio, TV, mobile phones and at retail stores and theaters. For a Dec. 19 concert airing on MSN Music by Pink, an artist who posits herself as the opposite of the tabloid queens, Control Room will be placing ads next to content on websites showing photos that purportedly show flashes of celebrity genitals, and any other content.”

Ford is a sponsor of the concert but has nothing to do with the celebrity promotion campaign. “Ford knew nothing about this. We would never be involved in this kind of activity and we are currently investigating the situation thoroughly to determine exactly what the facts are,” a company spokesman said.

Control Room Ads Not Running - December 20, 2006

It didn’t take Control Room much time to figure out it had better switch gears and forget about the genitalia campaign. Nina Guralnick, general manager, said in a statement, “Such advertising tactics are not consistent with our vision or marketing practices. The ads have not yet been posted, and will not be running on any websites.”

The Pink concert is hosted on MSN’s music section, and MSN announced it was pleased to hear the ad campaign had been dropped. “Microsoft had no knowledge of Control Room’s Pink concert advertising campaign. The reported ad campaign is counter to MSN’s brand identity, and we are happy Control Room has pulled them,” said Rob Bennett, general manager for MSN’s entertainment and video services.

But for all of that, word certainly got out there about the concert. Could that have been a viral campaign?