Having just been cited for deceptive advertising by inventing a critic to hype Columbia Pictures’ films, Sony Pictures Entertainment is under the gun again.
This time it’s fake fans.
Seems that in a nationally televised ad for the Mel Gibson hit The Patriot, a montage of interviews were shown with everyday people as they were walking out of the theater and talking about how they loved the film. One couple thought the film was a “perfect date movie!” However, the ad neglected to mention that the two people were actually Sony employees.
In a report by Variety, both employees, Tamaya Petteway and Anthony Jefferson, work in Columbia’s worldwide marketing department. Petteway is the executive assistant to Columbia’s executive vice president of creative advertising, Dana Precious, who was in charge of marketing for the film. Jefferson works in the financial area of the department.
The use of “testimonials” or “reaction spots” is commonly used in Hollywood marketing. Often, studios will set up test audience screenings, representing the right demographic for the film, and then will tape short interviews with those people who like the film. Occasionally, actors are used to read a few lines and are paid a small fee.
However, some movie marketing insiders at other studios told Variety that studios generally won’t use their own employees for these spots–but others have claimed using actors or employees in these spots is “industry-wide practice.”
“Using actors, real people or employees as a spokesperson is not unique to the entertainment business, is not specific to Sony Pictures Entertainment and is not something that is practiced only by me,” Columbia’s Precious said in a statement defending the Patriot ads.
However, Precious did add that it may be time for the studio system to reevaluate its business practices regarding marketing, to perhaps “rethink and redraw some boundaries,” according to Variety.
Charges of false and misleading advertising fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission. Mitch Katz, public affairs specialist for the FTC, said Friday that he couldn’t disclose whether an investigation had begun to look into Sony’s marketing practices. Katz did emphasize that the studio has already admitted to its wrongdoing in the case of the made-up movie critic and has claimed to be putting things in motion to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Katz added, “These deceptive advertising practices, however, may fall under the ongoing investigation into the marketing of violence in films to children.”
Indeed, says longtime distribution chief at Columbia, Jeff Blake, who recently took over the advertising and marketing department at Sony, “new policies and procedures…are [being] put in place [that] will make it a concrete policy not to use this form of advertising in the future.”
He also suspended the two marketing executives involved in the invention of the phantom critic “David Manning,” whose glowing quotes were used several times to promote Columbia films including The Animal and A Knight’s Tale. The Patriot ads were done before Blake took control.
“We were never shown the TV spots that apparently aired while we were out of the country promoting The Patriot,” Suzanne Fritz, a spokeswoman for the movie’s producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich, told Variety.
She added, “If these allegations prove to be true, then we are extremely disappointed.”
