With a strange mix of art, crime and money, a Sony ad campaign has managed to spark outrage in Philadelphia.
The ads -- graffiti-esque cartoons of bug-eyed children playing with Playstation Portables, Sony's new game system -- have been spray-painted on walls throughout the city. Without the Sony logo or name appearing anywhere, they are almost indistinguishable from regular graffiti.
Mary Tracy, who heads Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight, which aims in part to combat excessive outdoor advertising, was especially upset to find that Sony was behind the cartoons.
"It's extremely egregious for them to come into Philadelphia and ignore our laws," Tracy said. "They're putting these up in poorer neighborhoods and what it says is, 'They don't know better.'"
Sony spokesman Woody Mosqueda said that Sony felt this campaign was the "best fit for the urban nomad," city-dwellers constantly on the move who constitute Sony's target group. He also defended the legality of the ads, saying that property owners were paid for the use of their walls.
However, since 1991 Philadelphia has had a cap on outdoor advertising, meaning that anyone wanting to put up an ad in the city must remove an equal amount of ad space or apply to the Department of Licenses and Inspections for special permission.
Sony did not alert the city of the new advertisements or apply for a license, according to SCRUB.
When SCRUB alerted the city of the ads, officials took quick action to have them removed.
Philadelphia Managing Director Pedro Ramos sent a letter to the Sony Corporation ordering it to stop the ads and fined Sony and the property owners. The fines are currently in the process of being paid or contested.
The penalty -- $150 for each violation -- is a drop in the bucket compared to Sony's reported profit of $246 million for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, but the company removed the ads before the Dec. 29 deadline.
"We took it very seriously very early on because of all the city's done to fight blight over the years," Ramos said. "Pretty much they're gone. They were run out of town."
Chiat/Day, the San Francisco based ad company that organized the campaign, refused to comment on it, and Mosqueda said that no one knew the campaign would spark controversy.
However, Penn Communications Professor Joseph Turow, who teaches a class on advertising, was sure advertisers would be aware of the controversy.
"I think it's a little tawdry," Turow said. "But that's today's marketplace."
College senior Josiah Neiderbach, who works for SCRUB, supported the city's decision to take a hard stance.
"If nothing was done, there would be business graffiti everywhere," Neiderbach said.
