UK PSP advertisements ruled as inoffensive

They might not have been offensive but putting the "Take a running leap" ad right next to subway tracks wasn't the smartest thing to do especially when according to the original story (I think), the city was trying to cut down on people jumping on the tracks.

"Your Girlfriends White bits here"

Huh? I dont get it. What are white bits?

Sabre. The person who would take a running leap because they read it on a poster probably should did it anyway.

It's a joke people, and as crap as the ads are they worked because you don't need any other ads being talked about.

Ooh... try this one, RM:

"prickly PSP posters prompted population protests"

Quality.

"Your Girlfriends White bits here"

Huh? I dont get it. What are white bits?"

I don't get it either.

the guy with an idea,

Your girlfriend's white bits are supposed to be her untanned skin. So I guess it'd be like an American ad for a PSP saying you could use it to view your girlfriend's white spots past her tan lines. Not especially racy, really.

From the link:

They said ad (b)'s headline "YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S WHITE BITS HERE" was intended to highlight, in a tongue-in-cheek way, the fact that it was possible to view personal photos on a PSP. They said it referred to a scenario familiar to the ads' target audience: girlfriends complaining that their holiday snaps showed them in a bikini before they got a tan, thereby displaying their "white bits". They said it was written colloquially to reflect how its audience might speak about the scenario.

It's still bad placement for Sony (and the PR firm they hired) to put them there. If you were a cop in a bad neighborhood trying to clean up the drugs in the city, would you want some big corporation putting up a billboard that says "Do drugs! They're cool!" ?

It's common sense man.

inoffensive =/= defensive?

Great, so now that there's nothing left to hold it back, the PSP can start selling like hotcakes!

Those adverts are just cheap rip offs from Selfridges instore ads. They look exactly the same, same colour same typeface, same "in your face" style. the one that sticks in my head the most is the "Buy me, I'll make you better" one. though this may just be Manchesters city centre Selfridges only.

They can't even do an ad campaign without copying.

Another case of bad publicity being simply bad publicity. Just because someone talks about your ad doesn't mean its doing its job. A good ad will leave positive impressions that could equal to sales. A controversial ad or just a plan dumb ad wont achieve that. If any PSPs sold from sorry posters like this then I imagine it could have done 3x-5x better with a actual intelligent massage.

"10. Those adverts are just cheap rip offs from Selfridges instore ads. They look exactly the same, same colour same typeface, same "in your face" style. the one that sticks in my head the most is the "Buy me, I'll make you better" one. though this may just be Manchesters city centre Selfridges only.

They can't even do an ad campaign without copying."

both are very similar to an ABC advertising campaign in the mid 90's as well as many other print ad campaigns i've seen over the years. i doubt it's a ripoff but it is a poor advertisement.

A good example of not ALL press is good press, is actually the PSP ads here in the states. Those talking squirrels really turned me off to the PSP. I talked with many people about them (oh, everyone's talking about the PSP!), and how offensive, racist, and stereotypical they were. Based on that, and maybe the lack of a single game worth dropping $200 on the PSP for, I decided to pass. Okay, maybe it was more the game part, and not the ads; but, they certainly didn't help!

I guess it's just me, but I thought the flying leap posters were pretty funny. No sane individual would actually jump, but the idea of "going out with style/fun" is amusing. I don't think there's enough foam padding in the world to start limiting everything to the lowest common denominator...plus, humor would entirely disappear.

My girlfriend ain't white. What about girlfriends who have skin pigmentation?

@Amrcanpoet

I found the little, dirty dustballs with the Mexican accents even more offensive.