It seems Sony has seen the light, or at least heard the uproar, in regard to its European campaign for the PSP White.
The company has officially pulled the ad campaign and issued an apology for any offense that might have been taken in the ads. Game Politics is reporting that Sony’s director of Corporate Communications in Europe, Nick Sharples, has said “In (the) future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries."
The ad campaign featured pretty provocative pictures of a white woman and a black woman in a confrontation. A billboard placed in Amsterdam showed the white woman staring down the black woman while grabbing her face. The only words on the ad simply stated: “PlayStation Portable White Is Coming.”
Following the placement of the billboard, quite an uproar ensued with folks falling in on both sides of the fence. Most of the outcry came from America where the ads were never intended to run. Many, myself included, saw the ads as ridiculous, outrageous and even quite racist. Some, however, defended them, saying they were a brilliant way to show the contrast in the PSP’s colors.
One crafty Internet cartoon artist defended the ads by trying to show them in a different light. Creating his own spin on the issue, he drafted a mock ad with a skinny kid grabbing a rotund kid. The words on this version say: Nintendo Dual Screen Lite Is coming.
Pointing out that perception is everything, the creator at Ctrl+Alt+Del made his message clear and did it well.
But I’m still finding myself returning to my original question: What does Sony’s ads really have to do with gaming?
I’m of the opinion that Sony knew exactly what it was doing with the ads. They weren’t slick. They were cheesy and they were, in my summation, designed to drum up the kind of controversy they created.
Even if it had been two people of the same race, or two of anything for that matter, the tension and violence depicted sure as heck didn’t make me think of a video game console or wanting to buy it.
Related:
PSP Ads Are Beyond Idiotic
Sony PlayStation Portable Ads Draw Ire
Sony Uses Guerrilla Marketing In U.S. For PSP
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