An April Fool's joke, by a company claiming to have developed a gaming console that can read Xbox, PlayStation and Wii games, has fallen flat.
Last week, a press release was sent to a number of consumer Web sites and magazines, from a company calling itself Reinventech. It claimed its founders had invented a gaming console that could read all the games produced by the big three: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
The statement boasted the console, Phantom HP, could play multiple formats and noted consumers no longer had to be brand-loyal.
"It is more powerful than all three of the bestselling consoles, as the strong aspects have all been integrated into a synergistic environment that does not stall or hang," the release quoted fictitious marketing manager Chris Hott as saying.
Those who received the press release were encouraged to go to the Reinventech site and register their e-mail addresses if they wanted to know more. No other contact details were provided.
Guerilla marketing
On Sunday, 1 April, Reinventech revealed in an e-mail sent to those who had registered that it was actually Hotprice, a new price comparison site.
Daniel Martins, sales and marketing manager of Hotprice, says the joke did not generate the kind of publicity hoped for.
"We only got about 100 registrations, so it was not entirely successful. We were hoping this guerilla marketing campaign would have been picked up by a large national publication such as the Sunday Times. However, our site is not really quite ready yet, although in about two weeks' time it will be."
Martins says the e-mail addresses harvested during the campaign run-up would be erased from the database. Respondents would only be contacted if they had agreed to receive Hotprice e-mails, he notes.
Indetail Advertising, a small Johannesburg Web advertising agency, owns Hotprice. Martins says a limited budget meant the company had to be creative about how it announced the new price comparison service.
Martins says there has been no contact from Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo about the hoax, even though these companies have reputations for guarding their intellectual property and branding.
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