Is Sony trying to fail?

#1 They have to explain their losses to investors somehow. A botched ad campaign is a good place to lose a couple of bucks!

#2 Well, to be fair, they had one where the situation was reversed. (Girl was on top, it was kinda hot) I don't think it was them saying that White people > Black people.

That doesn't excuse the ad, however. It was obvious that the ads were intended to be racially charged and therefore generate publicity. I do, however, think that it is another manifestation of the company's hubris. No one would ever believe an ad like this would come from Apple...and they've been doing the, "White is cool!...Wait, now Black is cool!" for a while.

#3 They're both women. Also this was an ad campaign in Holland or something, where the race thing is not so much an issue.

#4 I'm sure if it were in the US it'd have created alot of controversy, but you have to remember in other 1st world countries we're practically over the whole "Racial Discrimination" issue. Being concerned about it just turns you racist eventually.

#5 Race not an issue in the Netherlands ? Like a lot of the more "opened" western societies, with a strong social democrat current as part of the state direction, there is a strong reactionary extreme right movement, and strong undertones of xenophobia, antisemitism and outright racism.
Racism, xenophobia and intolerance are still very much comtemporary issues in the Netherlands, all Western societies as well as much of the globe's societies.
That photograph in the context of that particular ad does make you wonder about the approach they were taking....

#6 Controversy has been Sony's marketing strategy at times.

#7 The ad is blatently racist and is was meant for a consumer who would think a racist joke would make the product appealing. I don't know what planet these people who made the ad think they are on, but the one we live on has only relatively recently been chipping away at the heavy heavy racist foundations in societies. This was a case of using a racist joke in an ad in a place where the ad company believed that racism would be acceptable, but they got caught.

I went to the video rental store with a new manager. The manager didn't know I was married to the assistant manager. They proceeded to make a sexist ass of themselves while trying to sell me a promotional item. You know... wink wink... nice ass, great tits... wink wink... all guys are secretly pigs so if I appeal to this piggishness I'll win this guy over and land a sale. Then my wife walked out and introduced me. Yeah... it was a slightly uncomfortable moment for this guy. Especially since my look of shock was quickly turning into a look of kick someone's ass. Point is... you CAN appeal to the screwed up side of people and sell them something. And that is what they were doing here. It's plain as day.

#8

Quote: Also this was an ad campaign in Holland or something, where the race thing is not so much an issue.

Do you mean the Holland that the African slave trade started from? Yeah. Hmmm... gee, I wonder if this ad was meant to appeal to racists? Gosh. I just wonder.

My wife is mostly Dutch. Her family's motto? "If you ain't Dutch. You ain't much." Yeah. We don't talk to her family much. They don't approve of our being friends with non-white race people and gay people. Yeah, my future children won't be visiting their relatives.

#9 It's old news that was up on Joystiq a few days ago. Looking back it was the Netherlands and the news was about the ad being taken down. And I'm not speaking so much about racist attitudes in Europe as opposed to this is the kind of stuff they could even try to create over there. I really don't care what the point of it was, the PSP is a gimped unfocused product anyways.

#10 Never really thought about it, but South Africa was a Dutch colony... or at least started out that way. And Afrikaans is a derivative of the Dutch language.

Amazing what correlations you don't get until the day they smack you in the head.

#11 Totally agree with Anton.
Sony is simply trying to get major attention. The PsP has not much going for it (IMHO, no flame wars plz), so they get it talked about any way they can. I agree with the fact that the ad is quite shocking, though.

#12 Sensitivity, racism, and homogeneous attitudes are intermeshed issues. It is a convenient myth for any nation to find itself above class, race, or gendered roles. We tell ourselves such lies all the time. America is great at it. We are the melting pot of immigrants who colonized and committed genocide for the good of our future generations. He feign a melting pot while claiming a stake in the land that we stole, the murders we committed, and the crimes we are perpetuating. We give enough to shut up the dissidents, the minorities who find their voices whether it be a gender, racial, ethnic, or political minority. Many other Nations do the same. Some do it through oppressive/repressive means, wiping clean the dissidents through military action.

National and popular sensitivity, homogeneity, and assimilation and polticial suture are complicated issues that are not as reductionary as one might think. But it is often extremely usual and extremely casual to mention that "We are beyond such things" depending on what the things are and whether we want to deal with them (or feel that our forefathers have already dealt with them and silenced them through whatever means necessary).

#13 Well, obviously our sensitivity to these things shows that we still have a long way to go until we truly don't care about race. The ad was obviously supposed to generate attention by preying on our sensitivity to the 'color clash'. This doesn't even deserve a topic, they're just generating publicity through a bit of a low blow.

It's been proven that ANY publicity is good publicity. That's what they're doing, generating publicity. If you want to go along with their plan and get into discussions of racial tensions and all that jazz, go ahead. But I personally don't believe this ad deserves a forum thread, not here anyways. It's got two chicks getting a bit physical. Walk by, see the hot girls, see that they're talking about a new colored PSP, and leave it. It's that simple, it really is. Leave their sad attempts at attention garnering to themselves.

If you want to think about racial tensions and all, might I reccomend Waiting for the Rain by Sheila Gordon. Good book, takes place in South Africa....can't remember quite when.... 50's maybe?? Actually, read it either way....it's a good book....I liked it at least.

#14 Not talking when things are bad is exactly how to keep it from ever getting better. I'm sorry, but this is exactly where this topic belongs, in a forum about game developers who wouldn't do something this bad just to make sales. And... this wasn't supposed to be an attempt at 'bad' publicity. Like Sony says, this was aimed at a target audience who Sony not only thinks this won't offend, but for whom Sony thinks it will make the PSP attractive.

Having seen the other ad, where the roles are reversed, I have to say that this entire ad campaign was created by a total, probably cracked out of his/her mind, idiot(s). I just can't begin to see how this company was this stupid. But I can easily see that Sony is more than willing to sell something any way they can to anyone. Notice that they don't actually admit fault, but rather claim that the Billboard(which is in English) was not intended for countries that would find it offensive?! What a bunch of dumb shits. You KNOW that some one from a local Sony office approved this ad campaign for that country and that they no longer work for Sony now that the global Sony has been embaressed.

I don't think that anyone in the world is even close to being above a conversation about racism. If you don't think it's a problem... you are lucky... most of the world suffers horrors daily from race oppression. I mean... read the international news and you'll get 100 new stories ever day about it.

And NO... ANY publicity isn't good publicity when you are a company like Sony with major competitors like Nintendo and Microsoft. Did you see what happened to Michael Jackson? How about Tom Cruise? There are lines that you don't cross and right now... plenty of parents are looking away from the PSP and PS2 and PS3 and at the alternatives that don't think that Billboards with white women chocking a black woman by her face is an ok way to get attention.

And finally... read the statistics about the race and age of who owns most of the PS2s in America. Sony just screwed up in a BIG way.

#15 People have extremely short memories. Next to no one will care about or remember this ad in a month.

I do weigh in on the "this was a mistake" side of this... and I think Sony is making lots of them.

#16 Sounds like a mistake to me, but an amazingly shortsighted and insensitive one. If their marketing department was even remotely diligent, they'd have picked up on the fact that this could easily be misinterpreted.

And yes, I'm following my creed: "Never ascribe to malice what can be chalked up to stupidity."

Josh is right, this will blow over shortly... unless Sony continues to make blunders of this sort, and folks dredge it up as evidence of racism.

I'm curious to see if they learn from their mistakes.

Now... to throw a wrench into the works. Which is worse, the company that publishes racially insensitive advertisements, or one that promotes negative racial stereotypes in its games?

#17

Quote:Now... to throw a wrench into the works. Which is worse, the company that publishes racially insensitive advertisements, or one that promotes negative racial stereotypes in its games?

Well, since Rockstar is hand-in-hand with Sony, who knows what they might have planned!

#18 This is a cheap grab by Sony to get a bit of attention. Anton, you mention Michael, well his record sales went way up during the law suits. People are making fun of Tom Cruise, and if he's smart, he'll find a way to profit from it. Maybe he'll write a "Tom Cruise Jokes, by the man Himself" book, i'd buy it :P ....it's interesting to see people make fun of themselves, that's why people watch comedians . Really though, Sony is getting attention, I remembered that the PS3 exists.... I hadn't looked at any of the games for it, or the console's progress for a month or so till a few hours after I saw this story and wondered about the progress. This billboard is a marketing ploy, discussing this ploy is pointless on this forum. The topic of racism is for a non game-industry related forum. Besides, this is quite likely going to blow over in a few weeks, just like Josh said. The reason I said to ignore it is because this marketing idea relies on that we will discuss this to death, talking about how bad this is for Sony, when all that's happening is that we're saying how bad this is for Sony.... I'm not saying racism isn't a problem, i'm saying this billboard is insignificant. It's an ad. That's it. The way they made it was designed to get attention. I wouldn't have known there was going to be a white PSP if I hadn't seen this brought up by Tim Buckley from Ctr+Alt+Del. So it's obviously an affective advert. Don't pay attention to their representative's spewing bullshit, they're covering their asses so they don't get sued. It is obvious at first site that the ad is meant to start up a lot of heated discussion, with Sony right in the middle. Publicity is good. It can always be used.

#19 The "Ceramic White" coloured PSP has been on sale on Lik-Sang for months now :P
Remember that it wasn't sony who created the ad, they just comissioned an agency in the netherlands/holland/europe to create an ad for the Ceramic White PSP's, Sony would have been assured by the advertisers that the ad wold work in those territories, which it may or may not have.

#20 The ads seem kinda sexy to me. Am I colorblind?