Sony the streetwalker
Sony has been caught waggling it's marketing mojo at it's customers again. Saucy Sony is not shy about showing a bit of sales stocking to push it's product, but lately the company has been guilty of out-and-out marketing whoredom (remember their rootkit fiasco?).
Following on the heels of the FTC's announcement that they would begin looking at shill schemes, Sony fessed up that they were running a fake "amateur" hip-hop site to push PSP games. Their admission is here.
Here's what they say about themselves on their site:
Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
Sony Computer Entertainment America
I'm sure lots of people on the Internet are not who or what they seem to be. But shilling for little kids? Come on, Sony. These are our kids that you're trying to con here. Even megacompanies need to have a sense of right and wrong sometime. Besides, I'm sure most savvy cyberpups can see the varicose veins through your fishnets.
Posted on December 14, 2006
