PlayStation Marketer Explains PS3 TV Ads 94
Newsweek's N'Gai Croal writes "In a two-part Q&A, Playstation marketing chief Peter Dille discusses the PS3 ad campaign, Microsoft's blogger superiority, why Ludacris is his kind of celebrity and more." From the article: "Emotion is a big part of the category. You've seen the baby spot, which kicked off the TV effort. The whole thought behind that was, look at the wide variety of emotions the PlayStation 3 can elicit. The other theme we're setting up is that the power of the PlayStation 3 is so awesome that anything placed in close proximity is witness to this awesome power. So this baby doll is whipsawed through a gut-wrenching range of emotions, from laughing and crying to reverse crying. That's going to set up a series of spots where you'll see the power of the PlayStation 3 in this white room environment." N'Gai also has a great piece up looking at why screenshots are no longer effective marketing for next-gen games.
Here's a clue: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's a clue: (Score:5, Insightful)
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They got 15 pre-orders, so it should be an interesting weekend.
To be fair, apparently they are supposed to receive five more today.
Of course, what makes it all the more interesting is that apparently one dude pre-ordered four of them.
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Emotions? (Score:4, Funny)
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But it makes me not want to buy a PS3! I know that they say that if they've made any impact that makes you remember it, they've succeeded, but at what point does it become negative?
I mean, decency standards aside, I could put an ad on TV of a donkey getting sodomized by a midget, and then splash a company name up there. My message? "You're an ass, and we're small, but you'll still take it in the butt!"
It's offensive to our sensibilities in almost every way, but you'll probably remember the company na
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The point of marketing is to sell more products.
"If you've had ANY reaction to the commercial that makes you remember it more, then they're doing just what they've paid for."
They're doing what they were paid for if the money made from selling more products exceeds the amount spent on the marketing campaign, and not otherwise. There have been plenty of campaigns that people remembered for all the wrong reasons which failed to do this, or even resulted in nega
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Um, yeah, because the ads wouldn't make a lick of sense to anyone who wasn't already fully aware of what the PS3 was and what it portended... in which case you are probably a gamer who knows all about the upcoming generation and have already picked what system you're going to buy.
Hell, the only reason I was able to discern that those weird markings on the black screen at the end of the add were the release date was because I al
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Honestly (Score:3, Interesting)
These commercials are all pretty creepy. Definitely not something makes me want to buy it.
On the other hand, I had in the past dismissed several times Red Steel as being probably a dumb game. However, the recent commercials for it with the funny "master" with the white beard making all the wise cracks actually made me reconsider. I'm going to buy that one now, along with Zelda, whenever I get around to picking up a Wii.
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You might not be the target market, then. We nerds on the Internet often forget that not everyone thinks like nerds on the Internet. One of the reasons the Playstation was successful (in the US) was that Sony did a good job of capturing the MTV- and pro sports-watching crowds. They did this by making offbeat, weird ads that often had little to do with the game they were advertising. These ads just continue that tra
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Click on the grey guy with tons of eyes. Its mildly disturbing.
As an aside, if you were going to release a product, wouldn't you check to see if the domain is free before you announce it? (http://www.zune.com)
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https://www.zune-arts.net/ [zune-arts.net]
http://www.zune.com/ [zune.com]
ummmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Because I wasn't there?
What a glowing self-endorsement of his skills...
It's like a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought it was like sex... (Score:1)
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Basically, we have a product that needs no marketing at all anyway, and a division or department in the company that was given a budget and had to use it or risk losing it next year because of how stupid corporate policy generally works.
They also need to do things that will make them visible to the management of the company as much as to perspective buyers, because perception is reality and if management approves cash for ads and then they don't see any, the budget gets cut.
I work in Coca C
Coke and Pepsi (Score:2)
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This isn't the first time sony
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There's having to explain it to your audience and then there's your audience desiring an explanation.
It's the difference between approaching marketing as presenting a joke and approaching it as presenting a puzzle or unsolved mystery.
The ad works when it leaves the audience wanting to know more, which leads to them coming to you to find out more. You've drawn them in.
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Except in this case I don't think it's a matter of the audience wanting to know more. It's more like people found the ad distasteful, and now Sony has to explain/spin the ad into a positive light.
So, is this a case of any attention is good attention, or is it leaving people with a bad impression of the product? That baby spot is just awful. You've got this alien,
Wrong (Score:2)
You sir, are clearly not in marketing, because you're 100% wrong. The goal of marketing is to get people to remember your product. If a marketing campaign is confusing, it may very well be successful, so long as the campaign and the product are memorable. This is Marketing 101.
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You sir, are clearly not an English speaker, because you're 100% wrong. If the marketing campaign was confusing but got people to remember your p
This guy is smokin it up... (Score:2, Insightful)
If Sony thinks the console is going to sell i
Not as bad as PSP commercials. (Score:2)
Overly stylized commercials are just stupid. At most I'd do something like for the Matrix where you
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There is a massive focus on becoming cool with little interest in why something is cool in the first place. People loved the Playstation (and PS2) because it was affordable and had the largest line-up of games, there really is no 'magic' about it. What Sony seems focused on is technology (cell), media (Blu-Ray) and cool-ness when they should be producing a low cost system and ensuring they have the most (and the best) games released exclusively
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I think the 'cool' ads are a marketing mistake. They don't catch your attention, they don't come easily to mind later, and they just don't make you lust for the machine. I'd put it on the same
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When inflation is taken into account, the launch price of the PS3 is about as high as the launch price of the 2600. Remember how that wonderfully expensive 2600 ended up?
How about, instead of focusing solely on the price tag, you consider the ratio of bang/buck?
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I'm mostly interested in the amount of bang total. If they make it so you can daisy chain units together to increase the output of the system I'd be likely to buy more than one.
LAN play (Score:2)
The PC fanboys would claim that you can already do this: instead of putting four players in a split screen on one large monitor fed by one system, put four players on four smaller monitors fed by four networked systems. However, this would not help for games like Smash Bros. or Bomberman that show most of the playfield all the time anyway.
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I really wish they'd do this, for all three consoles. I've had a hard time seeing them in action. The XBox360 at my local retailers are all on the verge of death. Who knows when the PS3 will have the spare units to put out on the floor? Online video captures have to use horrible compression.
The best way to show me your game's graphics is on TV, but instead they squander s
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Why the PS3 ad campaign sucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Long answer: How many people in the Ad business do you know that are also hardcore gamers? Not many. In general, advertising people are artists - right brained folks, while gamers tend to be more technical and logical left brainers. Especially at places like slashdot. This guy is talking about trying to appeal to emotions in the advertisements, but he's doing it in a way that is fairly abstract. Logical people either don't get it or don't like it. Average Joe Sixpack tends to be neither artistic nor logical. He just wants to laugh, and the ps3 ads are nowhere close to the humor of the average superbowl beer commercial.
So, unless Sony is trying to reach out to the artistic - creative people and convince them to buy a PS3, the current advertising is not going to be that effective. After all, how many artists are going to be emotionally moved by the crying baby AND have enough spare cash sitting around to afford a PS3?
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Duck-headed people. Nothing at all to do with gaming.
And I still remember them now: I think they pretty strongly sent the message that this was no normal gaming system, and that Sony was at the cutting edge: of games, of art, of movie. And that they had money to burn hiring a top level director for 1min commericials.
These seem like tamed-down rehashs of those ideas - be arresting, surprising. But no
It ain't artistic either. (Score:4, Insightful)
* It will make you feel emotions, refresh the genre (baby)
* It will be very powerful (hovering self-solving rubix cube)
etc.
They place the stuff in a stock gray room which forces you to interpret and accept these concepts. Then the use the weird sound effects and music and make the monolith, i mean system hover: THE PS3 IS GOING TO BE VERY GOOD HEY THIS LOOKS KINDA LIKE 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY NO?
This isn't art. This is hype and hackery. It isn't clever, or introspective. It just makes the same outlandish claims about a product only in a new shell. It's only supposed to make the viewer _feel_ like they are clever and "got it". It's like the Matrix. There isn't anything to get. Philosophy and art 101, with a masturbation option.
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heh. I like that description. It's a shame I already posted in this story so I can't use my mod points to bump you up.
Of course I always though "Art 101 w/ masturbation option" was a person sitting in the back row of the library shelves ogling some ancient stone boobies.
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Good review!
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Agreed
If they wanted to convey power they should have 10 of them in a Beowulf cluster cracking a PGP email.
Then perhaps techs everywhere would go and buy them en mass 2 or 3 at a time.
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Maybe they didnt make the ad to target techs because they expect techs to read the specs and want one for the cool technology in it.
Note, I'm not saying the original ad campaign is good. I haven't seen it.
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Sorry, but you're wrong. I've worked several jobs in the advertising industry, and half of the creative people in that industry are gamers to some degree. I've worked at companies that have PS2s & X-Boxes in the boardrooms for Friday night gaming sessions. I'm currently work
The ads are all subjective... (Score:1)
Let me get this right... (Score:1)
All of our research shows that price is a barrier. They might say it's not the ultimate barrier, because they've been charging people, but our research suggests that it is a barrier.
And they price the device itself into the stratosphere?
Holy double talk batman!
Right (Score:2)
So... you wanted to illustrate that 'anything placed in close proximity is witness to this awesome power' by placing a baby who would probably be end
gee (Score:2)
Not that i understand why crying is related to gaming. Exactly what game makes one cry ?!? I was kinda hoping for FUN from a PS3 personally but to each his own. The only thing i can relate to is when EA shutdown the MCO servers... So sony will get me wrapped up in a game and then take it all away? Umm, that isn't gonna get me to pluck down $600 anytime soon.
WTF is reverse crying? I don'
Oh my god, they killed Aerith! (You bastard!) (Score:2)
Sephiroth kills Aerith [wikipedia.org]. (Nooooooo, you bitch! You bitch!) [youtube.com]
So.. They leaned nothing from the PSP ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Another poster was correct.. if you have to explain the commerical.. it is a falure.
the real question... (Score:1)
Sure, you can argue that in theory PS3 commercials may make people who were going to buy a 360 or Wii this holiday hold off for for a PS3. Is there really any substance to that idea?
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Absolutely, there is. There's a history of doing that successfully in marketing. I haven't watched TV in many years, but I remember seeing TV ads a long time ago that were for cars, but showed no picture of the car, because it wasn't released yet. It would show a bumper, or a silhouette, or some tiny detail. It's about buil
Screenshots are pretty much useless these days.. (Score:2)
The reason being is screenshots have been notorious for being touched up.
Also, theres the deceitful practice of using screenies of pre-rendered cut scenes to make a game look a lot prettier in an advertisment when the actual gameplay graphics aren't nearly as good.
On top of that, a static shot doesn't show you things like the smoothness (or lack of) of the game's animation, anti-aliasing, and clipping issues.
Their billboards aren't much better (Score:1)
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Monolith (Score:2)
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IT'S MAGIC!
PS3 = Emotion? Where did I hear that before... (Score:2)
The PS3 is just a console, get over it.
They really need a marketing campaign? (Score:1)
I don't understand why Sony would need a marketing campaign at all, other than to just demonstrate it's making some kind of effort.
The media hype is sufficient to inform people there IS a new PlayStation, and it's coming SOON... what else is needed?
They can't fill demand for the product as it is, and if the 360 is any indication, stores won't have a problem of units sitting on shelves for more than 24 hours until late Spring, probably later.
A good marketing campaign for the PS3 would be something that
creepy (Score:1)
WTF? (Score:2)
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Typical marketer thinking.
They're effective... (Score:2)
I'm a commercial producer myself, and even though the baby commercial (the only one I've seen aired so far) may be disturbing, it's memerable and sticks with you. Disturbing isn't neccessarilly a bad thing in advertising, because it means the spot is hard to forget. Now, I totally disagree with their reasoning behind the ad... "emotion"? Wow, he really did have to explain that for me to understand it. But for what it is, the fact that we're talking about it here is a pretty good indication of its success.
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Bullshit. People watching TV, casually, are much less interested in seeing the product in action, then seeing unique presentations like skits, and the like... since they're most likely watching TV for entertainment in the first place. As I always tell my sales staff, content is fairly irrelivant in ads, they're about establishing identity and a unique style that separates a business from everyone else. This goes for local spots and national spots alike.
And the Sony execuative only came out and explained i
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--Jeremy
Launch ads for consoles are just a formality (Score:1)
What a retarded commercial (Score:2)
What motivates ad agencies? (Score:2)
Are they advertising the product? NO! They are advertising themselves as a kickass ad agency! Look at how beautiful our ad was. Look at how many awards it won. Look at how much business it generated. Do you remember who the ad was for?
Every time I see an ad like this I think of Homer Simpson's high-brow Mr. Plow ad.
Marge: Was that your ad?
Homer: I... don't... know.