Zynga In Trouble Over Mafia Wars Guerrilla Marketing Pages 1 2 NEXT | |
Zynga In Trouble Over Mafia Wars Guerrilla Marketing  Zynga's recent marketing campaign for Mafia Wars involved gluing money around the streets of San Francisco, much to the chagrin of city workers. Zynga is currently trying to promote the addition of Las Vegas to Mafia Wars through means that are not quite normal. After Snoop Dogg blew up an armored truck this week, a bunch of fake $25,000 bills were glued to the sidewalk in various San Francisco locations, which the city is none too happy with. The bills promote a contest that can win participants $25,000 through the Mafia Wars website, but the city considers them serious graffiti. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has threatened Zynga with a lawsuit over the marketing campaign due to its cost to the city. Ungluing the bills reportedly takes a steam cleaner 45 minutes, and annoying paperwork. Total cleanup costs are still unknown. Deputy City Attorney Alex Tse has ordered Zynga to turn over all information on the marketing campaign and "a proposal to fully resolve the issue" beyond just paying for the city's time. Tse calls Zynga's advertisements "illegal marketing tactics," and isn't amused by them. Illegal or not, and whatever the ultimate cost for Zynga, the campaign appears to have done its job by getting the word out about the Las Vegas expansion to people that weren't aware of Mafia Wars before. Source: San Francisco Chronicle | |
Sounds like another marketing campaign that becomes a success by actually backfiring. Seems thats the best way to go if you really want to get your message across,get in as much legal trouble as possible. | |
well that was stupid of them. My sympathies for the workers of san fransisco. | |
45 minutes...that's good glue. | |
Its not a success if you didn't get sued. | |
I hope Zynga gets fined so hardcore, they will dial a notch down. The Anti-Christ is being battled, my Brothers & Sisters! | |
That depends. Although this might not make anything outside the local news,if you're law suit is on the news,it can end up making more money than it costs. Though that might be an extreme success,I suppose getting into as much legal trouble as possible,while at the same time trying not to get sued for too much,is what you'd want to be aiming for. | |
I dont think this is gaming news but Im glad to see some bad news about Zynga. | |
Intelligent marketing has reached a new height! | |
Some poor homeless guy probably tried to spend one of those... | |
Ah, Zynga. We have such a, erm... good relationship with them here at the Escapist. | |
Uhm, if it takes a steam cleaner 45 minutes to remove one, and some homeless person manages to get one off whole enough to spend it, I think he deserves more than the named value of the note ;-) Seriously, this is no better than simple vandalism. | |
Never underestimate hobo power! Never estimate it at all, it's actually kind of gross. Involves lot's of pissing on things. As angry as I get at commercials, they only take thirty seconds to go away. Some poor bastard had to spend 45 minutes cleaning it up? Fuck you, Zynga. | |
I hope they get their nuts sued out from under them. If the fines are too light, they'll feel rewarded for all this exposure, and the whole point of penalties is to punish. | |
Next, Zynga is going to fly skyscrapers into planes to promote their new game, terrorville. | |
I do not think this sentence is worded precisely as you intended it. OT: Does this remind anyone of Acclaim's atrocious marketing campaigns? | |
My apologies. I mean, anti-terrorville. Because it is skyscrapers into planes. Using science! | |
Didn't you know? They now make planes with the names of famous skyscrapers to get more people flying in them! Marketing tactics, those bastards.. OT: Fuck Zynga, they deserve to get sued up the ass for this. | |
45 minutes? No, that would be easy. Try 45 minutes times like 500 bills. 22500 minutes is closer to the mark DOUBLE FUCK YOU ZYNGA! Seriously, how ridiculous is this, what are they going to do for their next mafia wars advertisement? Perform Drive-By's? | |
The cost to make the 25000$ bills? Cheap as hell. But watching a hobo scrape at the 25k bills for hours on hands? Priceless... | |
That's funny, but I'm still not buying. Sorry Zynga. | |
Dude, you're kind of asking for it. | |
Ha ha, thats what I was thinking.. | |
I bet zynga will try bribing the city officials with farmville cash. lol just kidding I love you zynga (i play mafiawars and frontiervill dayly) | |
They must have some really clean streets in San Fransisco if they are fuming over this sort of thing. Either that, or they don't have flyposting there. As an aside, I would choose neither to condone or condemn these marketing tactics. | |
HA HA HA HA HA HA... Oh Zynga... You're the company of a sleazy crook and con-artist who feeds off people's ignorance and has ad-campaigns that fit this theme, keep giving me reasons to hate the average person. :] | |
Wait it takes 45 minutes to remove some paper glued to a sidewalk? Rain could do it in a few minutes. It isn't like paper holds together really well when it gets wet. San Francisco need some new steam cleaners, methinks. | |
I guess they had to again resort to their sleazy ways. | |
Oh god, this is classic. | |
"Zynga's recent marketing campaign for Mafia Wars involved gluing money around the streets of San Francisco, much to the chagrin of city workers." | |
Maybe they used liquid duct tape or something. Wouldn't surprise me in the least. | |
i have no words | |
Hope Activision and Zynga never merge, it would be the most evil company on the face of the planet. | |
"San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has threatened Zynga with a lawsuit over the marketing campaign due to its cost to the city." I see the problem here....You need to be suing for $100 million+ not just saying you might | |
And to think the Escapist almost voted this company over Valve. | |
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