Zune viral marketer arrested at SXSW
By Ryan Block 
posted March 14th 2007 8:54PM
posted March 14th 2007 8:54PM
Update: Microsoft gave us a ring with the following: "We can confirm that an employee of a marketing agency engaged by Zune was cited for hanging promotional posters at SXSW. We've launched an internal investigation and will cooperate with local authorities and festival organizers in all regards. Zune is committed to lawfully and respectfully promoting its products and services." Ok, so who's the moran / evil genius behind this thing?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
given the image they are trying to promote with the zune... I dont think standard advertizing will work... 3 days and orange/purple zune posters all over the web seems a lot more effective. the first shot is a lot more exposure to it than anyone would have given them passing them by on the streets
I am in Austin for SXSW. Every one of those light poles is covered in posters right now.
I watched another guy walking along dropping little 3"x5" postcard ads for a certain club every few feet, that seems much worse to me.
Makes me wonder why this guy got arrested? He must have been a complete idiot and been a prick to the cops.
I agree that it's a poor marketing form, I (and others in town) thought that the fines was a little steep. High School kids were getting fines that would bankrupt them and their families for life...imagine putting up a couple dozen flyers to spread the word about your garage band. We're talking local bands, not national or regional acts, and that kind of advertising had gone on for years with no peep from the city. The city dropped the fines substantially, but the point was driven home. And the law is enforced unevenly (targeting the music scene), because lost dog and garage sale signs are still up all over the place...
i can imagine lost dog signs being allowed cuz its not a form of promotion for a product/service... but i would then agree that it was being enforced unevenly and understand the frustration since they were still allowing garage sale and other personal promotion flyers to be posted all over...
Why is this considered "Viral" marketing? is a friggen sorbet colored poster? the whole point of viral marketing is that the people exposed to it then pass it on... Cartoon Network with having those boxes that were flicking people off.. were funny and id tell my friends about it... a sorbet colored print advertisement isnt likely to make someone say "hey! i just saw a zune poster today"... its just a print advertisement that was getting put upon on public property.. not viral.
It was probably the same moron in charge of the flyer marketing as the person that spells moron with an 'a'.
It's viral if this was a setup and we're now talking about it. Otherwise, just a lame poster.
Fa-fa-fa-fa-faaaaake!
Dude... arrested for putting up posters? And on top of it, hand-cuffed and thrown in a squad car for this? Puh-leeeze.
More like they have you take the posters down, and write you a ticket (possibly for each sign he put up). And if they WERE to arrest you for vandalism or something of that nature, I highly doubt that they would handcuff you for a non-violent marketing "crime."
This is hilarious... I don't know if its Apple who made this up to make it look like Microsoft is lame and nobody even wants their posters anywhere... or if Microsoft did this to look like the Zune is for "cool kids who get arrested for doing crazy stuff... fight the man!" lol (My guess is it's the latter if Microsoft was willing to come out and make a statement confirming the "arrest"...)
Viral marketing is also a lot more subtle than this. If it's done right, you'll go tell your friends about what you encountered, but you won't know you've been pitched to.
What is Zune?
It's SXSW.
I live in Austin, and most of the people who live here hate the circus that is SXSW (and having to pay $180 to see bands we can normally catch for free or like $5 cover any other week of the year.) It's cool for the first year or two you live here, then you realize 90% of the bands there suck and the other 10% of the shows you have to show up 2 hours early or the venue fills up and you don't get in.
The cops go a little looney because they don't want anything to go wrong. SXSW sponsors pay a lot of money to plaster their posters all over town, so they're just protecting those interests.
I was just down there on 6th street the other day. All of the lightpoles are covered in plastic wrap because parks and recreation knew they'd be covered in posters, so why bother aresting this guy?
they must be mad because the light pole still has plastic wrap around it, I must have been brand new, IF THIS WAS EVEN REAL which i highly doubt it is!
Boy could microsoft be ANY dumber? No wonder Mac use is on the rise!
I don't see why this would be viral marketing?
Moran? Did a "moran" write this?
noun: a person of sub-moronic* intelligence; one so moronic** as not to know the proper spelling of the word "moron" - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moran
Good to see my tax money is put to good use... putting the zune fans in jail?
...I guess they figured there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe they were wrong? ¬_¬
if they let one company put up posters, everyone will want to.
and the 10% they spoke of wasnt total marketshare. that was speaking of 30gb hd marketshare.
there are lots of 20gb,40gb,60gb,80gb hd players out there.
i think i was more like 1% total since the release.
Since when is hanging posters on telephone poles "viral"??
Lame publicity stunt... I'd rather get a Creative Zen Vision M than a turd-brown Zune