A closer look at marketing ideas that were good in theory but failed miserably. Despite the best-laid plans, history is littered with tales of businesses whose marketing stunts ran amok. To help you learn from other business’s mistakes–and avoid these PR nightmares–here’s the fourth installment in this week-long series of marketing stunts that flopped.
Sony.
In 2005, Sony had graffiti artists design–and spray paint–various pictures of their PlayStation Portable at several locations around New York City.
But many people hated the look of the ads, and others saw it as a blatant attempt to be cool, or to get cheap labor from struggling teenagers. An online petition was started with comments like, “Stop cynically exploiting graffiti artists.” Another declared, “I will never buy a Sony product again.”
The Lesson: If you don’t have street cred, really examine whether you have any chance of getting any before attempting to pull off an outrageous stunt.
Photo by Wired.
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