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Sony Graffiti Ads Draw More Anger

Posted by Zonk on Wed Dec 28, 2005 06:37 PM
from the viral-marketing-for-the-lose dept.
Businesses Entertainment Games
Philly.com is running the confirmation that Sony paid a vendor to lease wallspace for their PSP graffiti ads. Philadelphia groups are slamming the ads as affronts to clean urban spaces, and the Licenses and Inspections Department in the city is planning to cite the business owner. From the article: "Jake Dobkin, copublisher of the Gothamist Web site, considers himself a street-art aficionado. He said the Sony campaign hit his SoHo neighborhood in Manhattan a few weeks ago with not only 'dozens' of spray-painted murals but 'hundreds' of posters of the same cutesy youths. He took aim at Sony for trying to dupe people like him. 'It's clearly a large campaign, and deserves a thoughtful, measured response,' he wrote on his blog. 'Here's mine: corporate graffiti sucks.'"
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story

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[+] Sony Behind Fake YouTube Viral Campaign 284 comments
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Sony Graffiti Ads Draw More Anger 25 Comments More /

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  • Solution... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WTBF (893340) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @06:42PM (#14354472)
    Just go round and spray $sys$ infront of all the adverts.

  • So? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I thought the basic problem with graffiti that people were complaining about was that it is usually done to other people's property. If the property owner is consenting to this, where's the problem? Seems to me, it's a bunch of people who don't like graffiti itself using the property arguing as a ruse to get their way.

    • Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by creimer (824291)
      The artworks are basically unmarked billboards pretending to be street graffiti and can be argued as "false advertising" by those who are able to stick a large multinational corporation with a big fine.
      • You have an interesting definition of false advertising. Incidentally, I'm using your technique and redefining interesting to mean something private. What I mean by it is left as an exercise.

      • Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bogtha (906264) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @07:05PM (#14354588)

        The awful Christmas decorations some people put up look like crap too, but we don't forbid people from putting them up on their own property, do we?

        Since when is bad taste illegal?

        • Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by bigman2003 (671309)
          I owned a business for a long time- a new business opened up next to mine, it was listed as an 'art gallery'. It had the crappiest art you've ever seen (I don't mean like a 6 year old, I mean like an idiotic 19 year old...which is what it was.) They put old couches out in front of their place, spray painted their half of the building, put up horrible hand-painted signs, etc. etc. This was for a building we shared where I was paying $2.50/square foot- back in 1993.

          One of my customers was actually the city

  • Deaf ears. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub (11606) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday December 28 2005, @06:47PM (#14354488) Homepage Journal

    Complaining won't work. Spraypaint swastikas on the ads, they'll be erased in no time.
    (not that they're nazis, but swastikas always get the clean-up crews in action.)

  • Maybe there was a reason they used posters in NYC (Score:3, Informative)

    by vertinox (846076) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @07:12PM (#14354629)
    He said the Sony campaign hit his SoHo neighborhood in Manhattan a few weeks ago with not only 'dozens' of spray-painted murals but 'hundreds' of posters of the same cutesy youths.

    Oh... Myabe because graffiti in NYC is classified as... You know... A felony.

    With a entire office of police devoted to graffiti crime.
    • Philadelphia has strict billboard regulations. Companies have to get a permit from the city's Licenses and Inspections Department before putting up an advertisement.

      Sony did not get permission ahead of time for its graffiti ads, the L&I office confirmed yesterday.

      L&I intended to issue a violation to the property owner and inform Sony that such advertising required a permit, said a department official who asked not to be identified.

      Putting up posters isn't much better when you don't get permissio

      • Re:RTFA (Score:2, Interesting)

        by AvitarX (172628)
        Billboard laws are pretty much ignored in Philadelphia. They were looking at starting to fine illegal billboards to get more revenue in the budget,and clear channel through a hissy fit (don't know what they decided to do). I heard on the raidio that it is estimated more than 50% of all billboards/signs are in violation of the code withing Philadelphia.

  • They think they're being cute and getting their product into the public memespace, whatever the hell that is. They kind of are, but it's backfiring.

    The problem is, it's not backfiring quickly enough to suit me. So I propose we help them. We need to co-opt and corrupt the vacant-eyed gamins, in their style, and make them completely abhorrent to the general public. Only then will Sony achieve the vicious, visceral backlash and legal ass-reaming that these jokers are begging for.....

    ...say. Ass-reaming? I

  • that the only graffiti that I've ever liked was the old Palm OS graffiti. Most spray painting is pretty lame, IMO.

  • Bill Hicks was right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GrumpySimon (707671) <email@simon. n e t .nz> on Wednesday December 28 2005, @07:41PM (#14354787) Homepage
    ... if you work in advertising, please, kill yourself. Do it for the good of everyone.
    • Unless you're one of the many people in the industry (such as myself) who strive to make entertaining advertising that is actually useful, and that people actually seek out. There's a reason Adcritic had to start charging.....it was so damn popular! Now tell Bill Hicks to put THAT in his pipe and smoke it.

  • Donald Trump already did this on The Apprentice, but I'm sure that they had purchased the ad space for it. I think it was for Gran Turismo...
    • They purchased this space, too.

      The problem for this Rent cast member, living in SOHO of all places and complaining about 'corporate billboards', is that someone actually got paid to put this up, rather than being your typical crack head putting it up, which would be A-OK with him.

  • Maybe Philly City Hall should focus more on... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smaffei (565629) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @09:29PM (#14355301)
    The approximately 380 murders that have occurred in Philadelphia in 2005.

    We have more murders here "per capita" than New York City. I can stand the "little sony dudes" murals if there wasn't a person being killed by gunfire every day in the streets.

  • The meeting on this: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Luigi30 (656867) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @09:53PM (#14355412)
    Exec #1: Well, our ads aren't getting enough people to buy our PSPs. What can we do?
    Exec #2: We can improve the product, give it better battery life, better screen, like Nintendo did with the GBA SP!
    (All execs laugh at him.)
    Exec #3: We could try to keep it real in the hizzouse with graffiti! We'd license space on corporate buildings and spraypaint these awesome tags on the wall! We'd be the hippest gangstas on the planet and get more urban punks to buy our stuff!
    Exec #1: Marvelous idea! We'll do that, whatever he said.
    Exec #2: WTF.

  • Whoa, What An Outrage (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Paul Slocum (598127) on Wednesday December 28 2005, @10:30PM (#14355609) Homepage Journal
    It's a billboard in slightly different kind of ink. Big deal. If you haven't previously noticed that advertising can be deceptive, cheapen the arts, and degrade the aesthetics of our living spaces, then you have been numbed.
    • It's a billboard in slightly different kind of ink. Big deal. If you haven't previously noticed that advertising can be deceptive, cheapen the arts, and degrade the aesthetics of our living spaces, then you have been numbed.

      So I guess your position is that we've lost the war and should just give up. Who's the one that's been numbed again?

      Some of us would like to keep our streets clean, and keep the advertising in areas where it's, you know, allowed. The issue this article is talking about is putting adver
  • I noticed on my commute to work the other day that there was a ridiculous, even offensive number of advertisements all over the place on the way. The roads are littered with ads, on highwayside billboards, roadside billboards, sandwich signs outside stores, and even gaudy storefronts themselves. Surely legal graffiti (meaning: the space was paid for, so it's just like a billboard) is no less crass.
    • Microsoft did a similiar thing a couple years ago, placing "stick on" MSN butterflies all over the sidewalks in Manhattan, except there they really were illegal cause they hadn't licensed anything from anyone. And there was almost exactly the same amount of distaste over the advertising.

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