A couple days ago we reported on a few holiday adverts that are part of a “bigger campaign”.
Today Sony's Senior Vice President of Marketing & PlayStation Network Peter Dille detailed their PlayStation: Entertainment Unleashed ad campaign officially via PS Blog as follows:
This is one of the fun parts of my job, when we get to unveil our TV commercials and give you, our loyal fans, a preview of our spots before they hit the airwaves. This year’s campaign is dubbed “Entertainment Unleashed” and for good reason.
The campaign actually began quietly a few weeks back with three fifteen second “tease” executions. Hopefully, you’ve seen these by now. These initial ads depicted various people catching glimpses and reflections of beautiful PS3 game footage magically appearing ... More »
Believe it or not, whether you are a PlayStation gamer or not, you’re going to be disappointed that Sony really doesn’t have anything up their sleeve in terms of marketing their products... their odd ads are just plain out boring.
What’s even worse is that they are releasing one TV Spot with the same theme every few days till the 21st when they are launching a “bigger campaign”. I don’t know about you guys, but the TV spots so far are not inspiring me yet.
The first one is known as the “Alley” and the second one known as “Office Park”, and are part of the reflection campaign. Hopefully this “bigger campaign” will be more persuasive to the average consumer this holiday season.
Show us your killer titles, like Resistance 2, and LittleBigPlanet that you have been so excited for this year!
PS3Fanboy writes: With the release of the new Home beta, we now have a much clearer idea of how these region restrictions, that we discovered at E3, are being implemented. It seems that the client reacts to your console's native region, locking you out of any Home servers that don't match it. That means that if you're a UK gamer who imported from the US, you'll be spending all of your time with Americans inside Home. If you imported from Japan ... well, you can guess where that's headed.
What we find bizarre is that it's such a strict lock-out, and that you're not given any degree of choice in the matter. It seems so weird that anyone can access any region's PSN Store, but not the online social networking hub. We can only assume that similar restrictions as on the store will be made for purchasing within Home. That is to say, if you're a UK credit card owner you won't be able to spend anything in the US Home without some jiggery pokery.
Sony has recently revealed that they have plans to open up the PS3 to in-game advertising from outside agancies. In-game ad company IGA Worldwide is widely tipped to become the first company to deliver dynamic adverts to games on the PS3 console.
Andy Swanson, a Ubisoft director commented that Sony's decision to do this will strengthen the viability of in-game advertising field in general and should be positive in terms of growing the ad revenue for games.
To quote: Sony is set to ignite the world of advertising in videogames Wednesday, when it plans to announce it is opening its gaming platform to in-game ads from outside agencies.
In-game ad firm IGA Worldwide is expected to become the first company to get the nod to deliver dynamic ads to games on Sony's PlayStation 3. Competitor Double Fusion is believed to be finalizing its own relationship with Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ).
Andy Swanson, Ubisoft's senior director ... More »
The first adverts are out for GTA IV in the UK, and it looks as if the game will be getting similar treatment games like Assassins Creed and Burnout Paradise saw upon release, with the title only getting advertised for one console - in this case the Xbox 360.
It is likely this 360-only advertising could be part of the huge downloadable content exclusive deal Microsoft spent a lot of money on last year. As you can see the advert also gives mention of that, commenting it will be arriving exclusively on the console in “Autumn 2008”.
If this single console advertising continues onto TV we have to wonder will it have an effect on PS3 sales of the game?
On Tuesday the Advertising Standards Agency banned adverts for a new computer game, Kane & Lynch, because it deemed them too violent. It is interesting that adverts for last year's "torture porn" film Captivity were not banned, even though they were heavily criticised in the US. And no one even raises the possibility of banning such films outright. But then, computer games are our society's straw man for panic about moral decay, thought to have some special power to harm and corrupt.
Dr Tanya Byron's eminently sensible report last month on children and new technology emphasised the many opportunities for fun and learning that games provide. But the media coverage focused on the usual fears and worries. Byron said that we need to move away from talking about computer games "causing harm"; in response, TV and newspapers showed stills from games with titles like Manhunt and God of War. Byron said children need to be "empowered to keep themselves safe"; newspapers said comput... More »
Google has announced its first sizeable cuts, with the axing of 300 jobs at its online advertising unit DoubleClick.
The lay-offs make up about a quarter of DoubleClick's 1,200-strong workforce in the US. Worldwide, DoubleClick has about 1,500 employees.
Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that overseas operations, employing a further 300 people, will also be affected at a later date.
It is a first for Google and perhaps not one they want to trumpet too much.
In a statement, Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organisational plan for the business.
"As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in head-count at the acquired company."
Privacy concerns
Some workers have been laid off already, while Google says others are being offered transitional... More »
YouTube users in the UK will be given the chance to make money from the videos they post on the site.
The project is already up and running in the US and is now being extended to other countries, starting in the UK.
In the US some contributors are already earning thousands of dollars each month from their films, according to the video-sharing site.
The amount that is earned will depend on the number and popularity of the videos, it said.
Creating stars
Those signing up to the YouTube Partner Programme, as it is called, will be offered a share of the revenue generated from advertisements that run next to their video.
YouTube is not disclosing the exact details of the scheme, but does say that those making "several thousand dollars a month" are regularly producing videos with over one million views.
"The more videos you have and the more popular your stuff is, the more money you are going to... More »
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