Sony Corp is about to face a false-advertising suit filed by moviegoers who saw films endorsed by a critic dreamed up by a studio employee, the California Court of Appeal for Los Angeles has ruled.

The decision supports a trial court ruling that the ads are commercial speech and not fully protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution here, going on:

“Sony sought dismissal under California’s anti-SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, law, which was created to prevent chilling of free speech. Omar Rezec and Ann Belknap, who purchased tickets to see ‘A Knight’s Tale,’ filed the lawsuit seeking class-action status on behalf of ‘millions’ of people who paid to see films that Sony’s bogus critic, David Manning, praised in advertisements.”

Hollywood, of which Sony is but a component, is infamous for manufacturing people so it can pump them up through its on- and offline print and electronic media outlets and then make lots of money from product sales and appearances. Britney Spears is one of its best-known creations.

In 2001 Sony gave birth to reviewer ‘Manning’ whose ravings - hyping various Sony movies, naturally - featured in print adverts.

“Manning called Heath Ledger the ‘year’s hottest star!’ in an ad for A Knight’s Tale and said of the just-released Rob Schneider comedy, The Animal: ‘The producing team of Big Daddy has delivered another winner!’,” says Eonloine here.

“Curiously, Manning’s quote for The Animal conveniently fit the image in the ad, which parodies Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy poster by having Schneider and a monkey relieving themselves as they face a brick wall, It says, adding, “Other movies Sony, er, Manning, heaped mounds of praise on included last year’s Hollow Man and Vertical Limit.”

Nor is this Sony’s first excursion into, well, outright lying.

2001 also saw a fake fan letter manifested to advertise its then new Sony Formula One PlayStation game.

In a direct mailing campaign, Sony, “pretended an Italian teenager penned the letter, which was accompanied by a ripped-out magazine article promoting the competition, says Silicon.com here, adding:

“Advertising Standards Authority said the advertising was misleading because it appeared as though it was a personal hand written letter directed at recipients from a child. It warned Sony not to use this form of false mailing again.”

An excerpt from the letter read: ‘Hello I am Gian-Franco, I am a fourteen-year-old. I live in Italia&I hope you win the Playstation&My Brother says you can’t do it. But he’s just jealous. I took this page from this magazine-now we can show him who is boss. You can do it.’

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2004 at 12:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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