Sony's attempt to gain street cred for its new PSP handheld by paying graffiti artists to draw kids playing with the handheld has spectacularly backfired. As first reported on Wooster Collective.
Two weeks ago we reported that a number of internet blogs had posted pictures from New York and San Francisco of what appeared to be chalk drawings and paintings of kids playing with skateboards, bat and balls, and playground rocking horses that, on closer inspection, were in fact the PSP. The scrawlings had no overt branding or link to the product. But rather than the genuine work of graffiti artists, it surfaced this week that Sony had paid artists to paint buildings whose owners had also been remunerated.
In an unsurprising turn of events, the local population in San Francisco launched on the paintings with undisguised venom, scrawling 'Fony', 'Get out of my city' and, most tellingly for advertisers looking to get their brand some of the kudos conferred by street art, 'Advertising directed at your counter-culture.'
Jake Dobkin, publisher of Gothamist.com, a website devoted to New York art and culture, poured scorn on Sony's faux-graffiti, saying: 'Appropriating the authenticity of street art to promote a product is totally lame. Some marketing agencies might try to position these campaigns as "cool" or "real" or whatever, but don't believe them, Mr Major Corporate Executive. The 24- to 36-year-old demographic you covet so much knows the difference, and we are not fooled.' [shots.net]
