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Angry Neighbors Paint Over Sony's Graffiti Ads

Posted Jan 01, 2006 at 07:40AM by Dan E. Listed in: News
Ó

Guydoinggrafittiforsony

Graffiti-style advertisements by Sony Corp. to promote its PlayStation Portable gaming system at three sites in North and South Philadelphia have been painted over by irate neighbors, city officials said yesterday.

The ads, featuring bug-eyed youngsters with PlayStation Portables, were stenciled onto walls with spray paint this week. The locations were Girard Avenue near 15th and Eighth Streets and Passyunk Avenue in the Queen Village section of South Philadelphia. Two of the ads were painted over Thursday night or early yesterday, and one was painted over earlier this week, officials said.

Pedro Ramos, city managing director, said: "The ads were illegal because they lacked proper zoning and licenses. They were phony, in that they were commercial advertising masquerading as something else. And they are disrespectful of the neighborhoods where Sony thought it could get away with this conduct."

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23 Comments


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   by Nate (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

CreativeThinker, GodMedia: Sony paid both the people who put up the stencils and the owners of the property on which the ads were placed.

Lexiticus: that's not a reqiurement. This is advertising simply because it was paid for by Sony to promote a product.

Lotan: you're right, except that the government can do something about it. Cities have a right to govern commercial speech - in this case in the form of billboards or other similar signage. So you can paint your house any color you want, but you can't paint it with a big Smirnoff logo (if you got paid for doing it - if you didn't, then that might be another question).

Xocomwhiteox, Nevyn: It's the violation of sign ordinances in Philadelphia, and the subsequent vigilante actions, that make this a "new" news story, even though I agree it is getting very tired.

Interestingly, the violation of the sign ordinances appears not to be Sony's responsibility - the fines seem to be going to the property owners for failing to get the proper license. All Sony's getting is a bad lashing in the press.

   by bleemi (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

All I have to say is their tv ads are funny even my friends find it funny to watch. As for the graffiti eh what can I say its everywhere. I mean we have cars that have stuff on them. We have billboards everywhere, and we have them in our weekly papers. Sony just chose the most stupid thing ever which is graffiti sure its eye catching but catching the wrong eyes. They should of done what others have advertisement on bus stops the ones with the shelter. Not only that they should put them on park benches well atleast where I live on public benches there are legal advertisement on them.

   by MMMMMike (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

This is working great for Sony. Any exposure is great for Sony. It's been talked about in all areas of society. Way to go Sony, trend setters.

   by Phil Nolan (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

In those neighborhoods I'm amazed that they didn't have their paint cans stolen while they were working. Actually the South Philly area isn't as bad as it looks, the people who live there are quite nice (including an ex-girlfriend).

   by Lexiticus (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

I think the logo needs to be used before it would be considered advertising, and also they did pay the people who owned the property for it

therefore i'm pretty sure its not illegal. But not necessarily tastefull.

   by Sledge (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

True, and I'm pretty sure its illegal for them to paint over it. They're the graffiti bandits. That'd be like me crawling to the top of a billboard on the highway and painting over a Dr. Pepper logo because I find it wrong lol.

   by XOcomawhiteOX (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

This story will NEVER die!

   by Creativethinker77 (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

Come on Sony, you can use T.V., radio, bulletinboards, PSP vans, PSP cafes, PSP's in airports, hotels, holograms, whatever. Yet you choose to graffiti over these people's houses, even if it's temporary, people just don't want that. What if you happened to live in that home??

I remember some WWE graffiti someone used on one of our neighbor's vans. Is that right?? These advertisements are going too far in my opinion

   by Advertising -
   by Lotan (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

Creativethinker77 I dont think you get it...

The people got payed to have the add placed on there house... So there for its not graffiti and I am sure its not illegal because there where no logos.

So its like if I wanted to paint my house with adds the city cant do any thing about it...

   by Creativethinker77 (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

The people got payed to have the add placed on their house

I'm pretty sure that at one time this site stated that Playstation paid to put the ads (graffiti) up, not the people.

Who would pay to put paint on the side of their building?

   by GodMedia (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

Sony paid the artists to paint the graffiti, not the property owners of the places where it was painted.

Funny that Sony won't let us hack our own bought and paid for PSPs, but they have no trouble "hacking" other people's homes and businesses.

   by septicmadman (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

In Japan...

   by radical dreamer (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

lol, yeah there is no PS logo, who's to say they're not ads for the PopStation?

   by Namaru (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

You could almost think that the PSP kind of graffiti and the style of their commercials could link eachother together and blame the whole thing on them. How do you know its not a bunch of street kids who Love/Hate with passion the PSP?

PSP is like the best thing to happen since KFC, let people immortalize its likeness with bug eyed characters, just, not on peoples houses or buildings. Maybe some grass...or...a tree...maybe a billboard Sony bought...

   by Chris (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

So basically, what's happening here is Sony won again. The idea of marketing is to make people remember your product. I think they've done a super job.

   by jOeCooL (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

In my opinion, Sony is doing a great job advertising, but at what cost? - Defacing public property. Sony has no right to do that just because they are one of the worlds largest corporations and they think their product is so good. If the PSP had even better games, I might accept those ads on my house, but no the games need much improvement.

   by Johnny Maestro (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

It doesn't need the logo to be an ad, the very fact that Sony paid for it makes it so. Additionally, I couldn't paint my whole house zebra stripes (at least not in an urban area) as it would be a public eyesore; these ads are the equivalent of this.

   by Advertising -
   by Compter Logiciel (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

Sony and Microsoft seem to be marketing their game consles to neighborhoods in large cities

   by hush3r (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

the people around that hood need to get back to there lame lifes and ignore the art on the wall.
im sure that there are 100s of things they could be doin with there damn time

so what if a company paints on a wall.
people are surrounded by company adds you dont see me painting my tv or rippen bill boreds.

cops should arrest the people painting them. YAH A BIG WHITE SQUARE THAT LOOKS MOTHER f*CKEN BETTER. seeing poor paint overs makes it look more ghetto

   by Aryn The Cat (Unregistered) - 2006-01-01

This is just a hypothesis, but i think that the main reason why people are so pissed off at these graffitti ads is because they see way too many advertisements in their daily lives.

If it is not billboards on the streets, just using a computer and watching tv or listening to the radio exposes people to advertisements, people get way more advertisements than important mail on almost any day (not including newspspers, which are chock full of ads as well), and to top it all off telemarketers call them and interrupt whatever they are doing for the sole purpose of advertising and advertising companies are creating computer software that installs on computers without any consent from the people using them for the sole purpose of marketing and marketing research. Also, most people seem to not care if they wear clothing with advertisements and product names on them, so just walking down a busy street exposes people to even more advertisements. As a result, pressure builds and people's tolerance decrease with continued exposure.

In conclusion, I do not see this graffitti as being very offensive, but after exposure to so many ads and techniques used by advertisers to cause us to see their ads and in some cases try to force us to be exposed to them, it may very well be the small thing that brings people close to snapping. As some people would say, one who is under too much stress can go insane with one little push in the wrong direction.

Anyway, there are way more offensive and intrusive forms of advertising, so perhaps people should focus on getting rid of those before complaining about one more flat surface in the city becoming a billboard.


Oh...and hush3r, not everybody agrees with you and is willing to accept more than a certain amount of advertising, I for one try to ensure that I get exposed to as few advertisements as possible and dislike new forms of advertising, and I feel the same way about people like you as you do about people like me. Everybody is different and love and hate different things, learn to accept and deal with it.

   by wali (Unregistered) - 2006-05-15
 » hehe
[b]LOL[/b]

   by ALERTWARNING (Unregistered) - 2006-05-16
 » To Aryn The Cat
UH OH! Someones trying to sound more intellegent than they really are! Nice speech there. I wonder why you spend so much time on PSP forums, because that comment looked like it had some effort put into it. LAME.

   by Zaiber (Unregistered) - 2006-07-30
 » Reply me in 2 Months
I was just looking into old news and found this, so I read the comments and...why the hell are you replying to a post 4 and a half months older than yours?

This post is now 2 and a half months older than yours, so I expect to see a reply in 2 months! See ya!



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