Posted on Dec. 30, 2005
Controversial Sony Graffiti Ads Disappear
by Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA
The graffiti ads placed by Sony Corp. in several city neighborhoods to advertise its PlayStation Portable game system have been painted over, apparently by members of the community, city officials said Friday.
The city and anti-blight campaigners had protested the presence of the black-on-white cartoon characters riding the PlayStation like a skateboard, licking it like a lollipop or cranking it like a Jack-in-the-Box. The stealth marketing campaign has quietly popped up in San Francisco, New York and other large U.S. cities.
Philadelphia Managing Director Pedro Ramos, who sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company on Wednesday, said one ad was painted over as soon as it went up earlier in the week, and two others were painted over late Thursday or early Friday.
None of the work, he said, was done by city workers. In one instance, workers saw a man "who indicated he owned the property" painting over one of the ads, the city said in a statement.
"While we were prepared to deliver on the threats in our letter to Sony, it is much more gratifying to hear that the solution came from the communities or the owners themselves," Ramos said in the statement.
The company did not respond to the letter or to a telephone message seeking comment, but a spokeswoman told Wired News earlier this month that Sony was hiring artists in seven cities _ Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago were the others _ to spray paint the pre-drawn designs.
The city could have sought modest fines allowed by city code or sued to recover any profit the ads produced. The Sony Corp. reported net profit of $246 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30, when it shipped 2.75 million PlayStation Portables.