
Zynga in Hot Water with San Francisco City Attorney Over 'Mafia Wars' Marketing - jaybol
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/zynga_guerilla_marketing.php
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thwarted
Reminds me of when some cities (I think at least Chicago) fined IBM for their
chalk-based painting of the side walk "Peace, Love, Linux" campaign. IBM said
it was supposed to wash off, but it didn't.

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whyenot
This reminds me of about 10 years ago when IBM spray painted "Peace Love
Linux" on the sidewalks in SF. They didn't get away with their vandalism
either.

[http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/04/19/ibm.guerill...](http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/04/19/ibm.guerilla.idg/index.html)

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sabj
I thought these were terrible - just grafitti / vandalism. Acting macho on
some of the ads and declaring "hey, we killed trees, definitely not recycled!"
wasn't really warming my heart to Mafia Wars either, whether true or not. The
glued-to-the-sidewalk effect was just lame, though!

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arram
I've seen this on my street - I wondered how they got away with it. Guess they
didn't.

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FlemishBeeCycle
<http://www.google.com/search?q=reverse+graffiti>

It's always interesting to see how municipalities handle "reverse graffiti" as
an advertising campaign.

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watmough
There was a Brinks-style truck in Manhattan last week, with some slogan like
"Blow up this truck in Mafia Wars".

Seems like pretty poor taste, and are folks on Wall Street _really_ playing
Mafia Wars?

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aresant
Getting onto the front page of Hacker News, Reddit, Digg, Forbes, SFGate,
Cnet, Wall Street Journal, and every major paper in the country thanks to AP
release?

Charge is "documented acts of sidewalk vandalism"?

Zynga marketing team super win.

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nkassis
I don't know, this one might bite back. And, it just made Zynga sound more
"douchy" (couldn't find a better word). Vandalism is never cool unless it's
cool art (Good graffiti artist)

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lionhearted
> Vandalism is never cool unless it's cool art (Good graffiti artist)

True story: I'm in Vietnam right now, and I was walking back from a bar a
little after midnight with an American friend of mine. He's a very very cut
and dry, straight and narrow, ultra-law abiding, patriotic type fellow.

We see a guy tagging up a wall with spray paint - not artistically, just
vandalism. I say to my friend, "Should I go stop him?" See, I hate seeing
stuff get destroyed. I usually stand up to bullies, thieves, vandals if I
catch them. I'm a little bit trained in martial arts, enough that I feel safe,
and I figure someone's got to look out for society.

My friend, very straight and narrow, he says, "Nah, nobody stands up to the
government here. Let him have his civil disobedience." What a shocker for me!
But then he tells me the government has been somewhat bad to the people, and
only now are people feeling safe to push back a little. So we walked on,
leaving him to tag the wall unhindered.

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staunch
No such thing as bad press?

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hugh3
There's such a thing as overly-expensive press. I hope that there's a
sufficiently large fine levied against Zynga for this ad campaign to
discourage others from following suit.

There's enough advertising in the world already. I don't want it showing up
illegally on walls and pavement as well.

