Lady Geek

After hearing that Sony Playstation 3 is set to spend a whopping £4million on its first Christmas TV campaign, I was intrigued to see what they had produced – would this campaign be effective in helping Sony attract a broader audience? Could they reach beyond the teenage and twentysomething audience they have traditionally been very good at reaching?

I wanted to find out if the ads would connect with women, who make up a large growing proportion of the casual gaming audience and whom in the main, with the exception of Nintendo’s activity, have been neglected or patronised up until now.

Their strategic positioning of ‘entertainment super computer’ was not particularly inspiring. I expected that the campaign would focus on the exceptional computing features of the campaign: i.e processing power, gigabytes and they would fail to sell me the overall benefit of how the Sony Playstation would enhance my life. However I was pleasantly intrigued when I watched the Dr Beautiful ad which is based on the idea of the world being a stage and Sony being the entertainers. Its designed to showcase the wealth of entertainment available on PS3. The commercial will run in 17 territories in Europe and Australia.

Executionally, this is a visual treat; using old fashioned theatrical music which contrasts to the state of the art technology. The message was benefit led, emotional and humanazied the technology and got me excited about the possibility of some of the exciting features of the console. And it certainly was unique.

My only critique would be that it feels like a teaser ad- it has the power to seduce and intrigue but the PS3 has been out now for 8 over months. The role of the advertising now needs to help a broader audience understand how its going to enhance their life, how its better than the Wii & Xbox, and how its so much more than a pure gaming platform.

I spoke to my panel of Lady Geek experts and got their visceral reaction to the ad. They felt in the main, whilst visually spectacular, it still wasn’t enticing them towards to the console and didn’t improve their understanding of why they should spend all that money. They think of the Playstation as sleek, fast, with the best games and newest technology (vs. nintendo-easy, cartoony and fun for all) (x-box, multi-player, graphics). They weren’t quite sure of this positioning. They wanted to see more of the social aspect of gaming, the PS3 as the catalyst for bringing the fun factor to their families, friends.

That’s a big job for one ad. Its a fully integrated campaign so I look forward to seeing what else Dr Beautiful has in store for us…