The Daily Five: Worst Marketing Strategies

"Our industry is filled with poor choices and nights a lot of us will never remember, but when marketing teams came up with these ideas not only did an entire industry wonder, “WTF?” but they also made it possible that we never forget they happened.

Here are some of the most controversial, confusing, and downright stupid marketing strategies over the last two console generations." - David Wales

[gaelic_laoch]

I am genuinely shocked by the PSP as!!!!! Bad Move SONY I hope someone was fired and made wear a Sandwich boards saying "I am a Racist"!

[KingKevo]

I guess the person who made it did not necessarily do it with what people saw in it, which to be quite fair is fairly obvious and racist, especially (sadly) still in the times we live in.

The only good thing is that Sony got a new company to do their PR this year if I'm correct. The old one did screw up a couple of times.

[mewhy32]

The worse marketing of all time was seen when Don Mattrick took the stage at E3 2013. I mean he almost sunk the brand. luckily micro$oft were able to turn it around.

[meatysausage]

If anyone knows what the heck the baby ad was about, I would love to know

[KingKevo]

Apparently a lot of people draw a parallel to '2001: A Space Odyssey' where there is a character called 'Star Child' that Sony kind of recreates with the baby in the ad. Just like all the other PS3 ads they are imho really cool and weird, but I guess that they do not appeal to the casual audience too much, but all in all they are really unique and have some cool references in them, that you need to know to understand the origin of the spot, otherwise it will jest seem creepy.

Hope that helped a bit.

Edit: Found this on the web, it's from an interview with the PS marketing chief Peter Dille:

"Emotion is a big part of the category. You've seen the baby spot, which kicked off the TV effort. The whole thought behind that was, look at the wide variety of emotions the PlayStation 3 can elicit. The other theme we're setting up is that the power of the PlayStation 3 is so awesome that anything placed in close proximity is witness to this awesome power. So this baby doll is whipsawed through a gut-wrenching range of emotions, from laughing and crying to reverse crying. That's going to set up a series of spots where you'll see the power of the PlayStation 3 in this white room environment." He then goes on to say that it is "the ultimate Rorschach test." He explains that whatever you feel about the PS3 after watching the commercials that "those answers are true, if that's what it means to you."

[Eyeco]

It's a direct reference to 2001 A Space Odyssey ( I highly recommend you see this film) in the movie a single Black monolith triggers the evolution of Mankind from a group of apes that eventually discover the use of simple tools to an advanced civilisation that's just began to grasp space travel, basically showing how far humanity has progressed and it all started with that black monolith.

The PS3 in the advert represents that black monolith, and is signifying the greatness that's yet to come.

In the movie 2001 the Star Child is the next and possibly last evolutionary step for mankind.

The baby in the advert is referencing our next step, our future as gamers. It's a pretty interesting concept, the problem is the concept was far too vague, and possibly more ambiguous than the film they were referencing (2001 is a very open film) 2001 isn't very well known to the masses, despite it's countless presence in pop culture ,this in turn backfired and gave off the very confusing, kinda creepy, almost pretentious advert you saw.

Fascinating concept, very symbolic, but A it wasn't really pulled off to well, and B 2001 A Space Odyssey surprisingly isn't to familiar with people. It would have made an excellent teaser trailer, released a week before E3 on the internet, it just didn't work too well as an advert.

[RobbyGrob]

Worst marketing strategy of the 21st century:

Creating a mediocre console with accessories that only a small percentage of the market actually is interested in with a high price-tag for which you've presented some of the absolutely most disliked policies in the history of electronic entertainment around and that you're publicly admitting that you're scrambling to improve upon with a small increase in clock-rates and flat-out lies left and right before a launch-date that you're pushing forward to try and plug the holes in the sinking ship that you boastingly designed with help of "the greatest minds in the business" by going on the offensive against both your ex fans, the ever-important developers and the console-producing company that did all the things right that you did wrong, thus losing even more respect for every step you take.