How Bad Can It Get For a Marketer? Sony Lives Every Brand’s Nightmare
By Tom Chandler on Mar 10, 2007 in Biz Blogs, Underground Entertainment
David Airey’s design blog delves in the SONY Playstation 3 mess, and showcases a devastating anti-PS3 YouTube video that’s been viewed better than a half-million times.
First, Sony released an ultra-expensive gaming product (PS3) that actually inhibited online play (social networking).
Ouch.
Then they got caught running the Sony Flog (a fake fan blog), which not only deceived readers, but managed to insult their intelligence too.
Ouch.
(Click to see a typical reaction from the gaming blogosphere.)
Ouch.
Now watch what your former fans can do to you via Web 2.0’s social networking tools:
[youtube]R98qC0fd_1w&eurl[/youtube]
Ouch. Or, Holy Crap.
(FYI: as I write this, viewership for this exceptional video was closing in on 600,000 and climbing fast.)
This is every brand marketer’s nightmare–a seriously-flawed-yet-high-profile product and a series of marketing stumbles, including deception.
Sony: Welcome to Web 2.0. Enjoy the buzz(saw).
[tags]sony, ps3, flog, david Airey, web 2.0, engagement[/tags]
An amazing tale of weirdness and the snowballing of foolish decisions.
I’ll be forever baffled at Zipatoni’s work on this one. I can understand/believe the largewigs at Sony being too out of touch to make a smart call, but Zipatoni…
The copy and content antagonized the target audience from the beginning.
At least one of the actors used appeared on Zipatoni’s own site.
The domain was sloppily registered to Zipatoni for all to instantly discover.
Etc., etc., etc.
This is what happens when one tries to apply top-down control in this environment. Disaster.
I have this great analogy about the difference between taking a herd of cattle on a long drive across the open prairie and lassoing a single calf in a ring. It has something to do with marketing, control, persuasion and having the courage and sanity to let go when you need to let go.
Unfortunately, I’m too scattered at the moment to make that into a well-written and thought-provoking keeper, so I leave it to someone else to connect dots.
Carson
Carson Brackney | Mar 12, 2007 | Reply
Tom,
Web 2.0 is giving power to consumers on a global scale to communicate their displeasure with a company that neglects to consider how their desisions affect their customer base, and ultimately their own bottom line. I think it is a wake up call for large Corporations.
Jose | Mar 12, 2007 | Reply
Carson: I spent a few minutes wondering at the decision-making process surrounding the Sony disaster.
I’ve watched some marketing disasters unfold from the inside, helpless to stop The Really Bad Ad Concept or Wholly Misdirected Direct Mail Campaign, but never anything this bad.
They even lied poorly, not bothering to cover their tracks. I wonder if the lack of covert action wasn’t a form of protest by worker bees forced into this course from somewhere up the food chain…
Tom Chandler | Mar 12, 2007 | Reply
Jose: It’s gotta be tough for a big company to realize they’ve lost control of their brand online. It’s a recurring topic at my Engagement Principles blog.
You can influence the discussion, but it’s difficult to control it…
Tom Chandler | Mar 12, 2007 | Reply