SONY Shoots Own Foot With Fake Blog: A Case Study in Anti-Engagement Marketing
By Tom Chandler on Mar 10, 2007 in Engagement Marketing, Marketing
David Airey’s blog delves in the SONY Playstation 3 mess, and showcases a devastating anti-PS3 YouTube video that’s been viewed better than a half-million times.
This comes on the heels of the Sony Flog (a fake fan blog) that seriously pissed off readers (click to see the typical reaction from the gaming blogosphere).
Clearly, Sony’s practicing a little-known variation of Engagement Marketing: Anti-Engagement Marketing. More after the video:
[youtube]R98qC0fd_1w&eurl[/youtube]
Ouch. Or, Holy Crap.
It’s hard to quantify how devastating a fan-produced video like this can be, but add Sony’s moronic foray into flogging (a flog is a fake blog) and their subsequent (and high profile) outing, and they’re about to see just how bad it can get.
Engagement marketing is about connecting with the passions and values of your customers using interactive Web 2.0 tools.
What Sony discovered was that you better not abuse those tools (or release a product that actually inhibits social networking among your customers) or they’ll be used against you with great effect.
Technorati Tags: sony, ps3, flog, david Airey, web 2.0, engagement
Thanks very much for the mention Tom.
You add some interesting points to the mix so I’m glad I stopped by.
Hope the weekend was a good one.
David
David Airey | Mar 11, 2007 | Reply
Engagement Principles on the opposite way = Anti-Engagement.
Simply the best way to make your customer turns to your competitor. Say hello to XBOX 360 and Wii!
John Doe | Mar 11, 2007 | Reply
It certainly appears Sony fumbled the ball big time on this one. I wonder at Zipatoni’s inability to cover its tracks.
Clueless, or act of rebellion on the part of employees who were ordered to do this stupid thing from higher up the food chain?
Tom Chandler | Mar 12, 2007 | Reply