PlayStation Move ad a real punch in the face

It's a Christmas miracle! The world has reunited me with Britain's Ad Standards Authority, as the group has banned a "violent" poster for the PlayStation Move controller, based on complaints from eight people. Just like old times. And speaking of old, the poster itself (whose punching image is an oblique reference to a new game called The Fight: Lights Out) looks like concept art from Pit-Fighter. What out-of-touch cat lady put this thing together? Video games haven't looked like that in 15 years, much less on a console that doubles as a Blu-ray player. I hope that was the basis for some of the complaints. Full ad after the jump.

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Filed under Controversy, Europe, Kiefaber, PlayStation, Sony
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PlayStation's Kevin Butler now unstoppable

He was powerful before, but PlayStation's vp of everything, Kevin Butler, has found new reserves of awesome thanks to a deal with Best Buy to sell a Sony Bravia TV and PlayStation 3 bundle (console, games and movies) together at a steep discount. This allows the "boombassador of deals" to disarm a bomb, solve the energy crisis and help a woman give birth on a plane. Not to mention, he can now dunk. Lots more Kevin Butler goodness from Deutsch over at YouTube.

Filed under Best Buy, Deutsch, Electronics, Nudd, PlayStation, Video games
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Man-baby casts pall on Sony PlayStation ad

Here's your creepy commercial of the week: a Sony PlayStation ad from Argentina featuring a man who has retained his childlike wonder long past his diaper-soiling years. How do we know? Because he still has a baby's damn face! The effects are seamless, and all the more disturbing for it—fascinating in the way all anatomical oddities are, but sinister, too. And that last fact creates a problem for the spot, which is going for lightheartedness with the laughter at the end and the tagline, "Live in a state of play." Agency: Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi.

Filed under Nudd, PlayStation, Saatchi & Saatchi, Sony, South America
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Kevin Butler goes epic for PlayStation Move

PlayStation's vp of everything, Kevin Butler, returns in this new Deutsch spot promoting the PlayStation Move, the forthcoming motion-sensing game controller platform for the PS3, due in U.S. stores Sept. 19. Everything about the Move is epic, and by the end of the spot, Butler looks like he stepped out of a Capital One commercial. PlayStation shows off the Move a bit more in this earlier Butler-less video.

Filed under Deutsch, Nudd, PlayStation, Sony, Video games
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Sony pits PS3 against the all-purpose onion

Japan gets a lot of flak for its nonsensical advertising campaigns, but the new effort pitting Sony's PlayStation 3 against a bunch of green onions surprisingly isn't one of them. Despite the non-sequitur comparison of a high-tech game console to a batch of sarcastic scallions, the results are subtle and enjoyable, even if you don't speak the language. Similar to the "Get a Mac" ads, Sony's spots begin with introductions, the onion describing himself as "Banou-negi," or "the all-purpose green onion." The two then compare their relative qualities, with the onion largely serving as comic relief to the PS3's straight man. In the spot below, the PS3's capabilities are continually interrupted with green onion interjections like, “They’re not only toppings!” The commercial ends with the PS3 saying "Sorry, I don't understand this conversation very well, but..." To which the green onion scathingly replies, "That's right, you don't understand very well, do you?" (Special thanks to my friend John Odle for translating.) Check out more of the spots after the jump. Via The Escapist.

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Filed under Cullers, Japan, PlayStation, Sony
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TV network blatantly clones Kevin Butler ad

Kevin Butler's next job title at PlayStation might be vp of retaliatory ass kicking, now that one of his Deutsch commercials has been shamelessly reproduced—in practically a carbon copy—by a New Zealand television network. Apparently New Zealand is unaware that ads can be uploaded to the Internet and watched in other parts of the world that might not look kindly on such an homage. See the original PlayStation spot below, and the TV3 ripoff below that. Two words: Un cool. Via Joystiq. UPDATE: @TheKevinButler weighs in on Twitter, saying, "Dear TV3: You could have at least put my photo on top of the amp. Sheesh."

Filed under Deutsch, Nudd, PlayStation, Video games
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PlayStation has no time for baseball's MVPs

Sony PlayStation's "director of game accuracy," Kevin Butler, has returned to his favorite hobby: insulting American League MVPs to help promote the baseball video-game series MLB: The Show. In one of the best ads of 2009, he won a showdown against Dustin Pedroia without breaking a sweat. This time, he squares off against a more formidable foe: catcher Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins, who seems to have found the fictional Sony exec's weak spot—an off-the-books vacation in Cabo. We're glad to see Deutsch and Sony bringing new life to the series, though we're unclear on whether it's been a good or bad year for smirking spokesman Butler. His title seems to have changed to "VP, PS3 softball team." Sounds like an all-star level of wasted executive pay that would fit right in with most ad agencies—or the MLB for that matter.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Baseball, Celebrity endorsements, Deutsch, Griner, PlayStation, Sony, Video games
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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."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Deutsch, Jerry Lambert, Nudd, PlayStation, Sony, Video games
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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.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

See also:
New Xbox commercials will blow your mind

Filed under Controversy, Japan, Nudd, PlayStation, Sony, Video games, Wieden + Kennedy
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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.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Baseball, Deutsch, Jerry Lambert, Nudd, PlayStation, Sports, Video games
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