Just a few days after we lavished praise upon a new series of PS3 ads, we see this recently released European PS3 ad, and all of that is wiped from our mind -- as was whatever shreds of sanity we still clung to after the start of the "This is Living" campaign. Seriously, around the 25 second mark we were fairly sure we were locked inside a prison constructed of our own nightmares.
"OK, here is my pitch. We blend Cirque du Soleil with A.I. then we take that concoction and dip it in glitter, using the tears of five-year-old orphans as adhesive. Then, we set the whole thing on fire. That ... is your ad."
Whatever you guys. Just because Europeans can appreciate more of an abstract approach to advertising... I like of lot of the Sony ads. In an age of media/consumer/advertising saturation, their adds really stand out as essentially small-art films that have a real aesthetic quality to them, requiring you to work more, than just sit there on your fat ass and be spoon-fed information. Which in the end, at least in Europe, is going to sell more product. Apart from the TV ads, some of their billboards are really subtle and funny. Don't you guys appreciate this 'consumer art'? No?
I think the point is that they ads aren't convincing consumers to buy. If it was an artsy ad that enticed consumers to buy a ps3, then of course that would be lovely. In this case, the art doesn't do anything.
"Yes, well, that's precisely the sort of blinkered, philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds, squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement!"
So just because we don't like it we are fat American's who do not understand anything. C'mon, those PS3 ads are trying too hard but the both fail and succeed as ads. They generate interest in the PS3 but for the most part it's not positive attention that translates into sales. This is the problem with Sony. They don't really connect with the customer. They want to force ppl to think a certain way disregarding how the customer feels or what hey want. This is classic Sony.
Aren't art-house film watching, gallery-hopping, anti-capitalistic faux-intelligentsia the last people who would buy PS3s(Or Wiis, 360s, etc) or anything else smacking of commercialism?
I'm an European, I saw this ad on TV after seeing the American ad on Joystiq, and was very disappointed. Fucking crazytown bullshit that nobody wants to see FTW
You'd think they'd know their target audience (young males), but nooo they pull some avantgarde shit over us and become the laughing stock of the youth they were targeting. Maybe some crazy rich douches will buy it as an entertainment center after seeing this...
Oh and fuck you, you don't speak for all Europeans.
I think you all nailed it. Sony is not targeting young males. They dont want the PS brand to be a toy anymore. They want to adultify it. The kinds are like WFT? The adults are like WTF? And Sony just keeps trying to stear that massive brand that is the PS into a wholy different direction.
Most companies would just create a new brand. Like Microsoft and Ninty did. Sony went with PlayStation 2+1 but are trying to make it look like its a totally different species. So everyone is like WTF - you are killing the PS name and giving me toilet girls and circus clowns.
I did like it though. It was a good commercial. But no, it does not push me to buy. Thats what makes me like it even more.
So you mean they ditched everything that made the PS2 such a success so they can adultify the PS brand? Forget about this ad, their whole plan is batshit loco
Okay... that was fabulously stupid and pointless. We had mimes, clowns, a giant dry-cleaning machine, acrobats, a poodle...
I'm at a loss.
Wait! I've got it! Several Microsoft employees went undercover, disguised themselves as high-priced ad wizards, and pulled one over on SCEE! Oooh, those crafty corporate spies from Redmond! Or maybe they worked for Nintendo. I dunno... I'm just trying to come up with some other explanation besides Sony Execs Are On Drugs, which I admit is a persuasive theory.
I get what you are saying, but you're missing the point too, the point of this ad isn't to try to sell people playstation 3's. Its simply for associating the bizarre, fantastical imagery with the simple words 'this is living'. It's like brand association, just trying to push this simple sentence as something that means fun, wild, etc. From then on its the purpose of other ads to push the product.
Oh, -b- is right, the only problem I see here is the near impossibility of having any acquaintance of mine saying, after seeing siblings of this commercial some years from now, the following words: Verily, that IS living! If you excuse me, I must go buy myself a right now!
lol - don't bother explaining it to this crowd.. I think it was aimed a bit too high to be honest. I got the concept because I work in a marketing related field but I think they misjudged their market.. gamers are not exactly mensa level people so they will react like most people have on here. Lots of "WTF", "" and "what are you on" of questions which has been proven.
Someone in the Sony marketing department should be reassigned to work for a perfume or car company as the style of commercial is more in line those advertisement styles.
A. Europe is more high-brow then America - their adds tend to be more conceptual. I dont know why. Different school systems?
B. This is part of the ten year strategy and its only Year 1. In year one you position the product in consumer's minds. You dont push them to buy, now, quick. And they are purposefully positioning it not as a gaming console but as a lifestyle transformer. Very self-conscious, unlike most gamers.
C. I dont know. It kinda worked for me. They are trying to say that PS3 is wondrous and cheesy like the circus. And it transforms you living like a magical machine.
Freaky. I was mildly entertained by the weirdness and I guess if its goofy enough to stick in someone's head and keep them thinking of the brand it accomplishes one of the things advertising is intended to do.
whatever that was, i'm awestruck that anyone would dare to call it art. "we're sophisticated, we're edgy, we're different!" sony, you make an electronics device that plays shoddy ports of old games and blu-ray copies of talladega nights. you only hurt your own brand name with kitsch like this.
i didn't think it was possible for a console to jump the shark. thanks for proving me wrong, sony.
I love the This Is Living campaign; I've got the entire run + the Making Of featurette from the European PSN store. My favorite was the one with the flamboyant host of the fictitious You Bet Your Wife when he states that his jacket was "woven by the fingers of a thousand Thai boys." This one was good, too, but it is not the freakiest by a long shot.
