This Play Beyond commercial featuring a demonic-looking baby doll is one of the creepiest commercials we have ever seen. There's no logical explanation how something as bizarre as this would ever persuade us (let alone anyone) to want a PS3 -- and we're the ones who've bought systems, love it to this very day, and have made it our preferred console of choice. With that said, imagine what all those casual-gaming baseball fans were thinking when they first saw this. Imagine rooms full of beer buddies or baseball families with children sitting around the tube waiting for the game to come back on -- but instead of watching the next pitch, there's silence as this commercial plays. A collective "WTF" is felt across the nation.
4. PS3 - If "This is Living" I'd rather be dead
The confusing "This is Living" commercials from around Europe's PS3 launch last year were probably the most pretentious marketing campaign that Sony has ever done. At the time, the internet was buzzing with news about these horrible ads, yet, these ads completely failed to do their job -- move console units into homes. We chock it up to the nonsense imagery of bald guys in tubs, tap dancing hotel managers, and cute blondes on toilets which, on their own, left little for people to make associations with the PlayStation brand. Even more so, when these eccentric characters opened their mouths to speak ambiguously metaphoric lines, that's when any sense of rationality was thrown right out the window, along with sanity, and the will to live.
Now, this campaign bore a resemblance to a previous commercial done for the PS2 titled "Double Life." This old PS2 commercial was actually good and made quite a lot of sense. So why did "This is Living" fail where "Double Life" succeeded? The major difference between the two campaigns is that the latter PS2 ad didn't solely rely on pseudo-artistry and obscurity to confuse people into buying the product. It spoke directly about what happens when you play a PlayStation game and clearly took that other world as a metaphor for life itself. What was "This is Living" about? Absolutely nothing. But even then, some Sony ads about nothing have worked. This one just doesn't.
3. PS3 - Thumb-Penis ... because sex sells, duh
Ah, this one. It's the Austrian ad that took a man's livelihood and replaced it with his thumb for apparently no reason other than for the sake of "irreverence." Interestingly enough, this thumb-penis ad is also what inspired us to write up this feature. And because of that, it would be a shame to place this completely pointless, confusing, and incredibly ugly advertisement anywhere than a less respectable spot. Pun intended.
By now, you've probably already seen this TBWA\Wien creation, and the image has most likely given you night after horrific night of sleeplessness. Though we know you'd rather not see this man's deformed junk again, here it is one last time before you're compelled to gouge your eyes out. What is being accomplished here is an enigma; however, we do know it sure got people talking. If only Freud was around to explain things, then perhaps this might not have been a disaster.
