The Sony Corporation had to make an apology to the Nigerian government for a recent ad promoting its PlayStation 3. The reason? In the commercial a spokesman compares the rumors about the PS3's price drop to unfounded rumors on the internet. "You can't believe everything you read on the internet," the Sony ad-man says. "Otherwise I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now." Apparently the government officials in Nigeria spend more time watching TV than doing something about the real criminals in their country.
"Nigeria demands an unconditional apology from Sony Corporation for this deliberate negative campaign against the country’s image and reputation," the Nigerian government said in a publicly released statement. "The government sees this as an attempt by Sony Corporation to undermine Nigeria's business interest around the world. This insinuation is in bad faith and unacceptable. The government and the good people of Nigeria reject this unwarranted attack on the reputation and image of the country
"The apology must be given the same measure of publicity by Sony Corporation in all channels where the unfortunate adverts were aired."
Unwarranted attack? Do the government officials in Nigeria just have their heads stuck up their ass or don't they have access to email and the internet? The infamous Nigerian 411 email scam, as it's largely known, involves shady guys sitting in Nigerian internet cafes sending out query emails to millions of would-be suckers asking them to give the info for the westerner's bank account in exchange for the promise of millions of dollars.
But Sony blinked and issued the following apology: "It has come to our attention that a recent TV advertisement for PlayStation may have offended some members of the Nigerian community. "We never intended to create a situation that would upset anyone, and we have taken action to immediately remove the advertisement from the air. We apologise to anyone this may have offended."
Left out of the Sony apology was the promise to send $11 million dollars on behalf of an exiled Sony management executive if the Nigerian government were to send them their contact and bank account details.
They also need to apologize to Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The commercial says believing what you read on the internet started WWI, when it was actually the Archduke's murder. How dare they!
My uncle travels extensively through Africa on business and has visited Nigeria 6 times. His corporate credit card has been cloned in Nigeria 6 times.
I have another friend who works as a security supervisor at a major hub airport. When asked which planes he dreaded the most he replied it was any arriving from Lagos.
I personally have worked with a number of Nigerian companies in the risk control and security arena and can honestly say that I have never come across such a duplicitous bunch who think that concealment and lying in the course of doing business is completely acceptable.
If it's got four legs, a tail and barks at the postman, it is probably a dog!
Daltons chin dimple wrote:
If it's got four legs, a tail and barks at the postman, it is probably a dog!
Could just be Hicks on a bender.
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Daltons chin dimple
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Posted: 12 years 17 weeks ago
That would have been the best way to do it, if Sony issued a statement that in order to release their apology they would need the bank details of the Nigerian ministry responsible for their business image then the resultant apoplexy would have been glorious to behold!