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The whole story seemed a bit fishy. How exactly could an entire shipment of Sony Ericsson Xperia Play handsets manage to fall into the hands of a thief, delaying the launch of the new Android smartphone for Vodafone New Zealand? The carrier posted up some “security footage” of the “heist” and let’s just say the wheels fell off their little story. Turns out the stolen phone shipment was no more than a viral marketing ploy for the Xperia Play. It worked. Countless sites around the tech blogosphere ran the story after Vodafone NZ initially posted a message to their Twitter account claiming some Thomas Crown Affair-type antics. The faked story serves as the jumping off point for a contest the carrier is running. The prize? You guessed it. An Xperia Play handset.
[via Vodafone NZ]
Very crafty.
Well at least they didn’t make a fan site like that stupid PSP thing a while back
Yea this was genius. Well played Vodafone, well played… so many ppl believed it too. There were some that called it as being a publicity stunt tho.
Terrible idea for a marketing stunt given Sony’s lack of security is fresh in everyone’s mind. But then it’s a terrible phone that was doomed before it released, so I guess incompetence is to be expected.