Sony's Failed Bid for Cred

It's only been a week, but I've already heard several accounts of Sony's failed attempt at viral marketing, all of which diverge from each other and from the incident as I observed it. BusinessWeek seems to have the most accurate version of events, which essentially boils down to this: Sony hired a marketing firm named Zipatoni, who created Alliwantforxmasisapsp.com, a blog supposedly by two guys who wanted to talk up the PSP out of the goodness of their hearts (and for their alleged friend who wanted one, like, really bad). There was also a faux amateur YouTube video of someone rapping about the PSP.

Long story short: Suspicious visitors figured out the scam in short order, and Sony ended up with egg on their face.

What strikes me about this story -- aside from marketers' continued abuse of the term "viral" and the underlying concept -- is that it corroborates comments I've heard from Sony employees that one tentacle doesn't always know what the other one is doing. If they did, they'd remember that Sony Pictures Entertainment tried the same thing in 2001 with fake movie critic David Manning.

Definitely not a good way to close out an already trying year. Sure, a whole bunch of people are talking about the company as a result, but let's hope the company realizes there is such a thing as bad publicity.