Posting Date: July 31, 2002

Sony Ericsson Campaign Uses Actors To Push Camera-Phone in Real Life (Wall Street Journal) -- "In one initiative, dubbed Fake Tourist, 60 trained actors and actresses will haunt tourist attractions such as the Empire State Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle. Working in teams of two or three and behaving as if they were actual tourists, the actors and actresses will ask unsuspecting passersby to take their pictures." (Comment: Even if you think they are scum, you have to admit that they are clever scum. I will remain neutral in my opinion. Hat tip to MadMan.)

Reader Comments...

Where will deceitful marketing take us?

1) At a restaurant, "I'll have what he's having." Ooops, he's an actor. He only looks like he's enjoying his dinner.

2) Hire my son to invite his friends over to play his new game console. We're the first on our block to have one. We're so lucky.

3) Create web sites by fictional people to post fictional reviews of your products. And employ teams of people to post Average Joe opinions about the products on other web forums. Oh wait, corporations already do that.

Posted by: Jack on August 1, 2002 12:57 AM

Fake hype is nothing new for Sony. Remember their fake movie reviewer, David Manning of the Ridgefield Press.

Posted by: Lyle on August 1, 2002 06:23 AM

That is pretty clever. I actually don't mind that sort of interface, because they probably won't do a hard sell on me, and I can check out the product. Better than going to a booth at a convention or in an electronics store.

Posted by: Lydia on August 1, 2002 02:10 PM

IIRC a similar effort was tried about 5-7 years ago by Harvey's (in the liquor category). Actors would go into bars and order martinis made with Harvey's and then push it on those around them. The same company placed little classified ads at the bottom of the first page of the NY Times that aimed to look like personal ads: text would read something like "Remember me? You had the red sweater, I was drinking the Harvey's martini. [etc.]" I objected to it then, and I object to it now: people need to know when they're being advertised to. Otherwise, it erodes the basic credibility of our world, and introduces too much friction.

Posted by: Frank on August 2, 2002 07:59 PM

John, thanks for posting this... it gave me kindling for my weekly Samuel Johnson rant.

Posted by: Frank on August 3, 2002 10:35 PM

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