Before Christmas there was a bit of controvesey over the way Sony had taken it upon themselves to use street art as a way of advertising the PSP. CityPaper has a great article on what it was all about.

“I first saw [the ads] outside the tattoo parlor on South and 13th streets,” says Albert Yee, who runs a local blog called Dragonballyee. “At first, I thought it was a nice ‘graff’ piece and took a photo of it to post on Flickr.” Yee says he eventually questioned the authenticity of the graffiti after seeing other versions near South Street and throughout Queen Village, even on a van parked on Bainbridge Street. “They were trying too hard to be cool,” he says. “Instead of going the route Sprite did in the late ’90s with painting murals in and around basketball courts, they hit graffiti walls, many times spraying over legitimate street art.”

Apart from upsetting local communities and those involved in genuine street art culture, the attempt by Sony to use this type of advertising could possibly be seen as damaging to the Sony brand. Trying to appear as if its part of a culture its not, it may well have alienated the very people whom it was trying to appeal to.