COMMENT: Oh dear everyone is up in arms about the new Sony Ad for a white PSP. And oh dear it’s getting bucket loads of publicity for Sony around the world from TV to radio to magazines and web sites and guess what – it isn’t costing Sony a cent.
Sony has achieved what it set out to achieve, low cost cut through in a cluttered market with a controversial ad campaign that pitches black vs. white for its new white PSP. Sony knew what they were doing and no one does gorilla marketing better than the Brit marketing agencies similar to the one Sony engaged for this campaign.
Some say Sony have bitten off more than it can chew with what some are calling a racist ad campaign for the launch of the white PSP in Europe but guess what? When it has all blown over and no one gives a stuff Sony will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Portraying a white woman, clad in white clothes with dyed white hair, holding a black woman by the mouth, the ad has already incited anger internationally and has since been pulled from the Dutch website it premiered on. Speaking to the media, Sony defended its campaign with the following statement: “A variety of different treatments have been created as a campaign to either highlight the whiteness of the new model or contrast the black and the white models. All of the 100 or so images created for the campaign have been designed to show this contrast in colours of the PSPs , and have no other message or purpose.”
Reports of the ad have since spread worldwide, and the US NAACP had the following to say: “The latest Sony ad conjures up bad memories of when stereotypical and offensive images of people of colour were accepted means of selling a product. Sony should immediately apologize and discontinue these archaic advertising tactics.”
Though Sony has removed the ad, the controversy remains hot and million now know that Sony have a white PSP just like the Apple iPod, which is exactly what Sony wanted.
