New ads say PlayStation 3 'does everything'Deutsch/LA is back with a new campaign for the Sony PlayStation 3, and it doesn't underpromise. The new tagline is: "It only does everything." There'll be nine spots altogether heading into the holiday season. Here are the first two, promoting the PS3's online capabilities and new $299 price point. They star one of our favorite actors, whale-noise maker Jerry Lambert, last seen brushing off a peeved Dustin Pedroia as "director of game accuracy" for MLB '09: The Show. Lambert is moving up through PlayStation's management food chain. Here, he serves as "director of rumor confirmation" and (a truly enviable position) "vp of enough is enough." |
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Published on August 28, 2009 | Permalink
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Wieden takes a closer look at gamers' faces
Wieden + Kennedy in Tokyo has rolled out a new Sony PlayStation 3 campaign called PlayFace, showing the facial contortions that gamers make while they're playing. It's all pretty stylish and exaggerated—the players also make lots of buzzing, beeping and cracking sound effects, which gives them a robotlike aspect. But despite all the bells and whistles, as AdFreak sister blog PDNPulse points out, there's been some grousing that the PlayFace work (the idea, if not the execution) is similar to some still photos that artist Phil Toledano did in 2002, also showing gamers' faces. Toledano tells the gaming blog Kotaku that Wieden "ripped me off," but that seems a bit excessive. Toledano's insight—that people let their guard down when they're focused intently on something (like gaming), and that you can see "a hidden part of their character" in those moments—itself wasn't so new. Philippe Halsman did similar stuff in the pre-video-game 1950s, when he began taking pictures of people while they were jumping—and had to focus on that, rather than on posing for the camera. (Halsman's work eventually inspired some cool ads for HBO's Six Feet Under.) PDN further points to some 2008 gamer portraits by Robbie Cooper, who had basically the same idea as Toledano. Seems like lots of people have been down this road. UPDATE: Compare Wieden's ad to Cooper's "Immersion" video below. |
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Published on August 21, 2009 | Permalink
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PlayStation thinks Dustin Pedroia is a hack
There's so much to enjoy in this new "Dustin vs. PlayStation" campaign by Deutsch for the MLB '09: The Show video game. First, it's got Dustin Pedroia, the unlikely American League MVP and just-as-unlikely pitchman, arguing with the makers of the game over how it's been programmed: namely, that his avatar can't hit the high-and-inside fastball. The Red Sox second baseman insists he can indeed hit it, and he wouldn't be polishing his MVP trophy if he couldn't. Even better: His nemesis in the campaign is PlayStation's "director of game accuracy," played by the hilarious dude from the Holiday Inn commercials—the one who tells his buddies to "bring it down a notch" when they're hassling Joe Buck in the hotel bar, and who later falls asleep in the tanning bed. The PlayStation channel on YouTube currently only has these two spots: the "Dustin vs. PlayStation" ad above and the "Joe the Fan" spot below (possibly starring David Gianatasio in the role of Joe). There are a bunch more on the way. Hopefully the Holiday Inn guy will make whale sounds in at least one of them. |
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Published on March 17, 2009 | Permalink
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