Sony Removes The PSP Ads
After we published the story about Sony’s white PSP ad in Holland, the story spread quickly to various news sites and weblogs, something that put Sony in a rather negative spotlight. Sony received a great deal of criticism from people and organizations like the NAACP. A Sony spokesperson has confirmed to GameSpot that all billboard ads have been removed:
Whilst the images used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colors available for the PSP, we recognize that the subject matter of one specific image may have caused concern in some countries not directly affected by the advertising. As a result, we have now withdrawn the campaign.
Sony also apologized for the ads, saying:
We further recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologize to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In 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.
I still wonder why Sony didn’t run the ads in countries with a greater black population, like the UK and US. Maybe because they knew the ads were “pushing the envelope”, and it was a far bigger risk to take?
July 12th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
congratulations… on giving sony tonnes of publicity for their white PSP, which, no doubt, was the sole intention of this ad campaign. Their pr people probably knew all they had to do was put something with black/white in it and everybody would instantly jump on the racial bandwagon to condemn it with their bleeding hearts and so forth.
let’s suppose they just had an ad with a picture of the white PSP and the price. who’s gonna talk about that? nobody.
Now throw in a picture of a white and black lady, put in a harmless but suggestive caption, and every over-sensitive do-gooder with a radio station, web blog or communial AA meeting is voicing their little opinions on it.
result = huge publicity for the new white psp.
good job…
July 12th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
I have to agree with david… all I heard when the ads came out was everybody voicing another inadvertent advertisement for sony. Its a PR technique… nike used to do this all the time but lately, sony has been taking the cake… remember the controversial psp graffiti campaign… trust me sony is not sorry for any of it. What to do about it??