Controversial Game Ad
Fallout 3:
Recent ads for Fallout 3, a new video game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Washington, DC, caused an uproar recently as DC-area Metrorail riders were bombarded with images of a ravaged Washington Monument and a partially destroyed Capitol building.

One DC subway customer wrote into the Washington Post about the ads, calling for their immediate removal. "The people of our city do not need a daily reminder that Washington is a prime target for an attack. We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like."


Mike Musgrove, a tech writer for the Washington Post tells riders not to get "too freaked out," it's just a video game ad, and goes on to explain how the game takes place in 2277, in a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. This isn't the first time a video game advertising has caused controversy, with residents, politicians and community leaders.


Hitman:
This two-page magazine ad for the game, Hitman: Blood Money, shows a lingerie-clad woman, who has been killed by a shot to the head. The words "beautifully executed" appears above the image. Most of the controversy about this ad played out online, with many saying it's was a blatant attempt to use sex and murder to sell a video game.


Another ad for Hitman: Blood Money featured a naked women who was electrocuted in a bathtub. This ad was called out for, again, using sex and violence to sell the game.


PSP:
The NAACP and politicians protested this Sony PlayStation Portable billboard in the Netherlands, which shows a white woman aggressively clenching a black woman's jaw. The ad was created to promote the launch of a new, white PSP (the original PSP was black). NAACP officials says the ad "conjures up bad memories of when stereotypical and offensive images of people of color were accepted means of selling a product. Sony should immediately apologize and discontinue these archaic advertising tactics." Soon after, Sony discontinued the ad campaign and apologized.


A series of graffiti ads promoting the PlayStation Portable also raised eyebrows when it hit New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and other large cities in December 2005. NYC city council member Peter Vallone Jr. complained that the campaign was illegal and asked Sony to donate $20,000 to the city's anti-graffiti program. Former Philadelphia managing director said, "Sony should forget the advertising and donate its money to the Mural Arts Program." Sony defended its campaign, saying they paid business and store owners to allow them to graffiti their walls.
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Anyone got any other ones?

 

A few gems from the comments of the Fallout 3 poster...

 

If people are offended, they won't buy the game or allow their kids to buy the game, and the games profits will suffer. If parents don't want their child to have this game... the kid isn't exactly going to be able to get the game is he now?

So... I couldn't care less about a bunch of whiny bitches complaining that advertisers use "sex and violence" to sell games that are essentially about sex and violence.

Best part: If the advertisers toned down the explicit nature of the posters, they'd be pissed that the advertising lied to them about the severity of the sex and violence.

 

The PSP ad was the only one that was over the line.

 

PSP ad was actually pretty racist, I was shocked they didn't notice how blatant it was when they made it. I mean it SHOULDN'T be considered to be in a perfect world, but any moron could see it was.

 

I agree. The only one of these ads that I had any problem with would be the PSP ad. Something that racist only less than two centuries after the end of slavery and just when we have begin to finally move away from racism is bound to spark anger and controversy.

 

I don't know why some of you yanks get offended so easily.

Advertisements have to create controversy to work, that's what they're made for. If you don't talk about it, it fails, so most of the people screaming "OMG, that's racist" were just adding fuel to the fire and helping Sony's creative team out.

That doesn't mean that they were racist. They just wanted you to look at it, save it in your memory and talk about it. And the most effective way to do that is to create controversy, that's it. There wasn't a poster of Hitler's mug anywhere near a PSP saying "Go Beat a Nigger... and a Jew"...

That aside, the hypocrisy of the "offended" people most of the time knows no bounds, being themselves, most of the time, more racist, violent or whatever they want to ban the ad for.

Happened the same with this XboxLive spot, which was banned for promoting violence as a game. Bullshit. The Ad was genius, fun and it gave the correct message about the product.

EDIT:



Here you have an image from the same shoot of the PSP ad. I suppose it's racist too, as it shows a black criminal attacking a poor white woman, no?

Please, someone explain me, why two women posing as "avatars" for both PSP models out there equates burning crosses and beating up black people.

Bah, people should just grow the fuck up.

 

That's one confused little boy. Is he trying to be black or asian? Also, that photo on the upper right, are those muppets or midgets on a fishing expedition?

I am just not going to talk about his face.

 

I actually agree with TMN, If the first PSP had been white they would have run an ad just like the one he posted. And it's better to have a black woman and a white woman than two white woman and one in black face.




Hmm Maybe I could get a job at sony making ad's :awesome

 

This whole thing is retarded.

What people here can't seem to comprehend is that the average person isn't nearly as thick-skinned as DLPers and the people we associate with. My friends and I wouldn't scream "OMG RACISTS!" at the PSP ad. We would, however, rag on how utterly unattractive both of those bitches are, and the utter laziness of the group behind this advert. Showing a white person and black person as avatars for psp black vs. psp white is probably the most uncreative advert they could have come up with: it's too predictable, and humans representing electronics is old hat thanks to the PR twats at Apple.

Fact remains, the people at Sony aren't completely retarded; they had to know that the NAACP would be all over this, seeing as the only organized body that bitches and preaches more than them are zealous Christians. It's not an advertisers job to tell potential customers to harden the fuck up - that's not how you sell shit. They want to put out their product and appeal to as many people as possible with as little controversy as possible, full stop.

tl;dr - it's stupid to whine over, but Sony should've seen this coming miles and miles (and miles) away. Lorgus hit the nail on the head in regard to sex/violence in video games and their advertisements.

 

I'm sorry, Blaise, but I LOL'd at this. Yeah right.

I'm sure you've heard more than once "Any publicity is good publicity". That's one of the basis of the advertiser's job.

Good advertisements are those that make you think about them. If I show you something ad tell you how pretty it is, you'll probably forget about it in a second. If I show you something, let it be good or bad, that defies the way you see things, it will leave you thinking.

Sure, you need to be appealing, and to show your product in a good light, but the most important thing you need to do in advertisement, is to get people to actually think and talk about what you're selling. The more they talk about it in the media, the more it will sell; that is a fact.

Transgression and novelty do the job most of the time, but when that doesn't work, or doesn't seem possible to appeal to your target through those methods, aggressive marketing targets specifically sensibilities and pokes them knowing there will be a reaction; a reaction that will give your product the publicity needed.

And not only the one it needs, but also for free.

Games like Grand Theft Auto wouldn't have sold half of what they've sold, if they didn't have all the angry media bitching about them. And that's just one of the thousands of examples you can get.

Examples of good, well though, and banned marketing campaigns:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

Yeah, most of the advertisers behind those ads could've predicted that some moron would get offended by them, but what is it that makes them bad ads? Do they not carry out their purpose? Do they not appeal their targets?

And another thing; Should we let morons like the NAACP and angry christians control what we should or should not see based on their views in political correctness? Fuck them. Freedom of speech exists for a reason.

I'm not telling anyone to harden up. I'm telling them to grow the fuck up, which are two different things.

 

Le sigh. I've never argued with someone I basically agree with before. Meh.

All of your examples were great ads, but I'm willing to bet that every one of those companies didn't follow up with an ad nearly as provocative, or anywhere near the subject matter of the ads that ended up getting them banned.

Because advertisers don't actually do their jobs solely to shock people into speaking out against their product - it's not nearly as cerebral as you're making it out to be. They're out to get people to buy their product to make money, first and foremost. Anything that has been proven to threaten that bottom line (i.e. "offensive" advertising) will most likely not be repeated, so even if the "offensive" adverts expand their customer base, they won't run to repeat a similiar campaign. I very much doubt that a group of advertisers for x product actually sit around planning to get a bunch of angry moms/civil rights groups rallying against them. For one, they aren't the demographic they're trying to persuade, and for another, these different groups stand as a potential threat to their product. I would argue that advertisers probably focus a bit too much on the demographic composed of return customers, who would probably be much less offended (or not even looking for anything offensive) than potential new customers.

And if these potential new customers are hung up on the fact that an advertisement promotes or encourages SensitiveTopic X, then they aren't really thinking about the product. Most people don't have the time or energy to complain about offensive advertisements, so they simply won't buy the product - which means the advertisers have failed.

Someone who is offended by something offensive isn't a sign of a lack of growth. Blood and gore is offensive; prejudice based on race is offensive; selling people motorcycles based on the premise that they'll blast past speed cameras is...well...encouraging people to break the law; playing "I wanna fuck you in the ass" is offensive, especially if they don't understand the language and later find out what was being said; canon-firing a baby out of the vagina is (hilarious) offensive. There's really no way to argue that these things simply aren't appropriate for commercials *shrug*. The fact that they're amusing is largely irrelevant - this place is proof-positive that offensive things often are funny.

And yet:

You're basically saying that if they don't like what they're hearing, it doesn't matter, because you're allowed to say it.