Zynga Marketing: FAIL

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It looks like Mafia Wars fans are not the only ones who think Zynga's latest advertising and promotional tactics are a big epic FAIL.  I discussed one such tactic in my article titled Boycott Statistics where these fake 25,000 dollar bills were scattered all over Hermosa Beach, Ca.

This style of marketing was not appreciated by the City of San Fransisco.  Here are a few article with all the details.  Thanks to MrSimy0 for bringing these to our attention.

This article is from The Wall Street Journal.
Zynga Game Network Draws Heat In San Fransisco Over Marketing
By John Letzing
Zynga Game Network Inc. drew an angry letter from the San Francisco city attorney's office this week, likening the company's guerrilla marketing of its popular "Mafia Wars" game in the city as "sidewalk vandalism."
Deputy City Attorney Alex Tse told San Francisco-based Zynga in the letter Thursday that its fake bills plastered to the sidewalk in various neighborhoods to promote "Mafia Wars: Las Vegas" are being removed by the Department of Public Works at considerable expense, and are "illegal and actionable."

The city attorney's office also is asking closely held Zynga to provide it with information that shows "when and where the graffiti in San Francisco was placed, and by whom."

Davis Elen Advertising, which deployed the Zynga campaign in San Francisco, said in a statement: "We take full responsibility for the program, regret any inconvenience this advertising has caused to the city and its residents and are working with the city to immediately resolve the issue."

City Attorney spokesman Matt Dorsey said the Zynga campaign has had a worse effect than other, similar efforts made in the city over the years.

"It really is a mess; it's worse than stenciling," Dorsey said.

Other guerrilla-marketing campaigns in the city include a 2001 effort by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to cover some areas with stenciled penguins, as advertisements touting the use of open-source Linux software on the company's servers. That campaign also drew the city's ire.
Zynga's profile has surged, as its games have drawn an increasing number of players on social-networking service Facebook Inc. In addition, Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) recently announced that it would distribute Zynga games on its sites.

Zynga and Facebook share an investor in Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies. DST's investment in Zynga late last year reportedly set a valuation for the company that was as high as $3 billion.

Google Inc. (GOOG) is also reportedly a Zynga investor. Other backers include venture-capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

-John Letzing; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

And here is an article is from the San Fransisco Chronicle.
Zynga guerilla marketing ploy gets legal response 

He may not be Nick the "button man," but San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has Mafia Wars in his sights.

DPW

Some of the offending bills.

Herrera's office sent a letter Thursday to Znyga Game Network threatening a lawsuit over a guerrilla marketing campaign the San Francisco-based gaming company is apparently using to drum up interest in the latest version of its Mafia Wars online game.
It seems that dozens of fake $25,000 bills have been glued to the sidewalk in five locations in Hayes Valley, and the Department of Public Works is sick and tired of cleaning them up.
A steam cleaner has to be brought in to do the work, and it takes about 45 minutes in each location, plus administrative time, DPW officials said.
"We don't have any staff to spare," DPW spokeswoman Christine Falvey said. The total cleanup costs are still being tabulated.
Each bill has the website address "mafiawarslv.com," which links to the Las Vegas version of game. The grand prize in a drawing for visiting the site is $25,000.
The company also blew up an armored car in the desert to commemorate the Vegas game, saying:

Yeah, you read that right. We're taking a 4 1/2 ton armored truck into the Nevada desert, filling it with dynamite and then kaboom!

We're not sure if that's kosher with authorities in Nevada, but the fake bills are definitely not cool with Herrera.
The city wants Zynga to turn over all its information about the guerrilla marketing campaign, asking for "emails, work orders, scope of work, contracts, marketing plans or other records -- that show when and where the graffiti in San Francisco was placed, and by whom," Deputy City Attorney Alex Tse wrote to the company.
The city also wants Zynga to offer "a proposal to fully resolve the issue." Just paying for the cleanup won't be enough, officials said.
"The City Attorney takes violations such as these very seriously and intends to pursue every available cause of action aggressively against Zynga for these illegal marketing tactics," Tse wrote.

Posted By: John Coté (Email) | August 20 2010 at 09:00 AM