The Campaign

Task: - A campaign of the Sony head mounted display (second generation). - How to deal with the adversity and gain optimum PR exposure. This product series previously had not cultivated expectation due to cost increase despite minor change. Target: - More than 150,000,000 yen value of PR exposure within the budget of 20,000,000 yen - Promoting product purchase. - Engagement with fans. Strategy: We made a plan to imply new market potentials rather than simply improving the product specifications. Getting an idea from the “conversion” implemented by fans of the first generation product, we have made a major conversion to the new product. We showed this experience and the detail through media such as Facebook to develop engagement with fans. We then carried out an event to offer totally new audiovisual experiences using the converted product at the Tokyo Game Show 2012, as this show is familiar to the target users. Result: - The exposure goal was achieved. - Sold out in 4 hours after pre-order started. PR Key Point of the Campaign: - Making use of the fan culture of “conversion” to draw interest and cover the weak newsworthiness - Implementing an innovative plan of converting new items and providing new audiovisual experiences to offer hot topics - Gaining sufficient exposure to allow for the sell-out in 4 hours despite low budget

The Brief

The goal was to promote the second generation of the head mounted display, Sony HMZ-T2, which immerses someone in the world of his favorite image. Although the first generation was sold out due in part to curiosity, It was hard to promote the second generation because the price of it was a 10,000 yen higher than one of the first generation despite minor changes and a feeling of hope for it was decreasing as someone's fever went down. We aimed to topicalize it and to stimulate the desire of people to experience it under this adverse circumstances.

Results

The products were sold out only four hours after the launch of pre-order sale. The PR result is estimated to be worth two billion yen of advertisement expenses, about 10 times the fabrication cost. The total 'Tweet' about this product reached 19,965. Positive Tweet response expressing the desire such as “I want it” “I want to experience it” was evident, whereas negative Tweet comments (such as price increase despite minor change) were not observed. The referral traffic reached 16,913,669. The product news was widely exposed as an example of aggressive marketing: in addition to the game media, popular among main target users, the product was exposed through mainstream media including terrestrial TV broadcasting and press websites. We are respectfully encouraged to develop the original games with this new device by some game companies.

Execution

22 August 2012 Prototype Testing in the Laboratory for Adaptive Intelligence, BSI, RIKEN 7 August - 3 September 2012 Remodeling 5 September 2012 Technology Direction 7 - 14 September 2012 Image Production 18 - 19 September 2012 Tokyo Game Show 2012:Building up the booth and Image Adjustments 20 - 23 September 2012 Tokyo Game Show 2012:Demonstration All above had been executed as planned.

The Situation

The rabid fan of this product included many from tech geeks who enjoy own modification, painting the product at choice and looking for an entirely-new way to enjoy the product, and so on. And more, on analyzing the first generation buyer profile, the main target of the product is the older crowd in their 30's and 40's, who loves movies, games, and animations.

The Strategy

To develop new market possibilities, getting an idea from the “conversion” implemented by fans of the previous version, we converted the new product and carried out an event to offer totally new audiovisual experiences using this converted product at the Tokyo Game Show 2012, as this show is familiar to the target users. The uniqueness of the product was maximized by newly introducing a spherical all-round camera and gyro sensors. This conversion enabled the devise to offer flexible image angles responding to the face orientation of the audience, instead of a fixed image. In the Show, using this product, we offered new interactive visual experiences to make the audience feel as if they were taken into another world: - A woman in front of the audience suddenly turned into a zombie and came right beside them - Musicians appeared out of nowhere and started performing music surrounding the audience