playstation – ps4 launch

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Newsworks Planning Awards PlayStation – Best Newspaper Campaign Emma Cranston & Stephen Cooke Exec summary: PlayStation broke publishing boundaries, unleashed social hysteria and created a media first with the launch of the PS4 through national press. The tactical placements and strong collaboration between all parties meant this campaign was a huge success and wide- reaching. Background & objectives: In the last generation of consoles, PlayStation lost its gaming crown. Microsoft’s XBOX 360, a fresher, exciting (and cheaper) console launched ahead of PS3, winning the battle of the two. With both launching next-generation consoles head to head for the first time in November 2013 (we knew we would be out spent by Microsoft too), the challenge was simple: change people’s perception at launch and win back our crown. All of the media arms for the PS4 launch were BIG and IMPACTFUL e.g. taking over the OXO Tower, creating a beacon for the next-gen gaming, therefore print needed to be up there with the ‘wow’ factor. Print also needed to be able to create intrigue during the build up to the launch, as well as impact at launch. The national press had the abilities to cater for both of these needs. Insight Research from UCL showed us that to change perception of a brand you need a series of positive ‘jolts’. Preconceptions of traditional print meant that people wouldn’t expect to see a ‘wow’ moment in print, therefore a perfect forum to run a stunt and to be part of the series of ‘jolts’. Although PlayStation has a gaming target audience, for this launch the target audience was much broader because the PS4 is not only for gamers but the whole family because it is an entertainment hub. National press was a perfect vehicle to communicate this announcement to a broad audience. We also wanted to bring the creative to life and showcase what readers could expect from the PS4, therefore we ran on newsbrand tablet editions too. We had to work very closely with the creative agency, Drum, on the strategy and execution of the press creative. This was then opened up to the media owners to discuss parameters, ideas and timings. Adnostic were also crucial to the tablet activity, which again needed a three way conversation between them, Drum and ourselves. The plan The tease The console had been announced in April 2013; traditionally the UK has had to wait for several months after the announcement before it is launched in this market (bigger markets

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Newsworks Planning Awards

PlayStation – Best Newspaper Campaign

Emma Cranston & Stephen Cooke

Exec summary:

PlayStation broke publishing boundaries, unleashed social hysteria and created a media first with the launch of the PS4 through national press. The tactical placements and strong collaboration between all parties meant this campaign was a huge success and wide-reaching.

Background & objectives:

In the last generation of consoles, PlayStation lost its gaming crown. Microsoft’s XBOX 360, a fresher, exciting (and cheaper) console launched ahead of PS3, winning the battle of the two. With both launching next-generation consoles head to head for the first time in November 2013 (we knew we would be out spent by Microsoft too), the challenge was simple: change people’s perception at launch and win back our crown. All of the media arms for the PS4 launch were BIG and IMPACTFUL e.g. taking over the OXO Tower, creating a beacon for the next-gen gaming, therefore print needed to be up there with the ‘wow’ factor. Print also needed to be able to create intrigue during the build up to the launch, as well as impact at launch. The national press had the abilities to cater for both of these needs.

Insight

Research from UCL showed us that to change perception of a brand you need a series of positive ‘jolts’. Preconceptions of traditional print meant that people wouldn’t expect to see a ‘wow’ moment in print, therefore a perfect forum to run a stunt and to be part of the series of ‘jolts’. Although PlayStation has a gaming target audience, for this launch the target audience was much broader because the PS4 is not only for gamers but the whole family because it is an entertainment hub. National press was a perfect vehicle to communicate this announcement to a broad audience. We also wanted to bring the creative to life and showcase what readers could expect from the PS4, therefore we ran on newsbrand tablet editions too. We had to work very closely with the creative agency, Drum, on the strategy and execution of the press creative. This was then opened up to the media owners to discuss parameters, ideas and timings. Adnostic were also crucial to the tablet activity, which again needed a three way conversation between them, Drum and ourselves.

The plan

The tease

The console had been announced in April 2013; traditionally the UK has had to wait for several months after the announcement before it is launched in this market (bigger markets

such as Japan and US are launched first). Therefore, nobody knew that PS4 was coming to the UK that year. On the 24 May we ran a teaser ad in Metro’s Sport section (around the Champions League final which highlighted PlayStation’s long-standing sponsorship of the tournament), to create intrigue and open the social conversations about the upcoming launch. It created a social wave of comments and hysteria; people were taking pictures of the Metro newspaper ad and sharing it on social networks (see below for teaser copy).

Not only were readers sharing the copy but they were even adapting it to show their excitement (see image below, left). PlayStation reacted to this and built a tool on their forum where gamers were able to easily change the copy and share the image on social network sites (see image below, right).

The launch day

The national press had one day to make an impact, which was the on the launch day itself; Friday 29 November. We ran big impactful formats (cover wrap, OBC and IFC DPS) with all key titles to PlayStation (the popular press and commuter titles). The big impactful formats showed that we meant business! The Sun is a key title for PlayStation, therefore we wanted

to do something a little more special with them. We needed to shock and entertain their readers. The Sun has never moved their Page 3 girl for any advertiser before and they initially were not willing to so do for PlayStation but after lengthy discussions and once we shared with them the approach the ad was going to take they agreed to do it. The creative read ‘Apologies to Rosie, 22 from Middlesex, Today’s Page 3 is for the Players’. We moved Rosie to page five! A media first! We had to work closely with The Sun who disclosed the name of the Page 3 girl just before going to print:

To bring the creative alive we worked closely with Adnostic to create a new bespoke ad format for the campaign, which ran in newsbrands’ tablet editions (Metro, the Guardian and The Times). It was a highly engaging video ad with multiple touch points - it actually felt as if you were playing the game. There were options at the bottom of the ad to view additional trailers of the other launch games.

 

http://dev.adnostic.co.uk/preview/ps4/v1/

The results

The teaser and The Sun’s Page 3 creative generated a huge amount of Twitter mentions. #sorryrosie was trending on Twitter on the 29 November.

Campaign loved the advert:

The tablet creative had a total of 270,000 ad views, 380,000 total video plays and over 150% ad engagement, proving the media was bought in the right titles.

The PS4 was officially the fastest-selling console of all time. Week one UK sales were 65% higher than XBOX One, despite them having a week’s head start.

Six months on, we’re still winning, outselling Microsoft not only on next-gen but across all hardware platforms.

Client view

Every party who was involved in the whole process were thrilled with the results. Here are a couple of quotes to prove that:

"The PS4 execution was a brilliant example of a client leveraging the power of an iconic editorial page by using witty and clever creative," (Simon Cosyns - deputy editor of The Sun).

“By thinking big and close collaboration between media agency, owner and game studios we created a really innovative launch that was the envy of all PlayStation territories. The results show how focus and creativity can outperform big budgets,” (Murray Pannell, marketing director, Sony PlayStation UK).