Sony Ericsson Ad Campaign To Use Fake Tourists
from the take-my-picture-please dept
It’s not that uncommon in more popular bars to be “approached” by marketing people selling this or that. Those people are usually wearing shirts that identify the company they work for, so you know to take their pitch with a grain of salt. Sony Ericsson is taking this strategy one step further to market their new T68i phone, by putting actors around to try to generate some “buzz”. The T68i phone, admittedly, is a pretty cool phone. It’s pretty small with a nice display and offers a snap-on digital camera as an additional accessory. The actors will go to bars and tourists spots and try to “innocently” engage people in conversation. The “tourist” actors will ask random passerbys to take their picture as a way to demonstrate the camera aspect of the phone. The actors in bars may take phone calls on the phone, where the display shows a picture of who is calling. At no point (unless asked directly) will the actors admit they work for the company, which has some consumer groups angry.
Comments on “Sony Ericsson Ad Campaign To Use Fake Tourists”
Just goes to show
Marketting = Evil.
It wasn’t always thus, but now it seems that the goal of any marketter is not to sell you a good product, rather its to convince, fool or con you into buy THEIR product (doesn’t matter if you need it or not).
There should be an ENFORCIBLE/ENFORCED law against this kind of misleading crap.
Re: Just goes to show
Actually, I am not really that disturbed by this plan. I don’t think it’s that evil, because it’s certainly not forcing anyone to buy anything. All it reall does is demonstrate the phone and what it can do in certain situations.
The Tourists
I have actually seen these “tourists” around Sydney it is blantently obvious they are actors, as the dress as stero types of the country they are supposed to be from. You can check them out on http://www.myspace.com.