Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

In digital era, most campaigns are digital centric. However, that’s far from enough for PlayStation5 launch in China when console game penetration was only 2%. How could we make success in the market that’s short of physical experiences? Instead of value driven regular media buys, we focused our media budget sharply around open sell day and created high-impact WOM driven experiential PS5 City takeover. By dominating not only gamers’ mobile screens, more importantly the landmarks of key cities with cutting-edge media formats, we successfully delivered PlayStation’s promise of “Play with no limits”. Result:PS5 whole stock were sold out within 10mins.

Background

China is the second largest game market with a market value of USD40.2billion. However, console gaming has been restricted by government regulation resulting in a market share of only 2% compared to that of PC and mobile games of 98%! Sony PlayStation was surprisingly niche due to low brand exposure and official access for years – only 13% of Chinese gamers could name Sony or PlayStation unaided. Sony planned to launch PS5 in China in 2021 to excite Chinese gamers. The challenge, how to activate the huge gaming market where console game experience is limited? With legal sales of consoles only recently allowed by the government our biggest challenge was the attention war of GenZ, our core TA, grab their attention and drive desire to the launch day sales event and clear sixty thousand units.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Experience “play has no limits” To fight against the media clutter and standout to GenZ, we embarked on a mission to create a short but highly intensive surprising Sony “Play Without Limits” take-over experience. Breaking the limits of media restrains and applying the imaginative Sony video assets into every moment of play of the Chinese gamers. Through paid media we created a super high attention and countdown to the sales launch event of 10am 15th May on ecommerce platforms and maximised the use of KOLs to demonstrate the immersive, impactful gaming experience of PlayStation 5. We set our ambition to create a high-impact WOM driven experiential PlayStation5 City takeover.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

What’s the best media mix to deliver a city takeover in scale? The small mobile screen is obviously far from enough. Our TA, the high-tier GenZ, are active outdoor. Their weekly OOH penetration reached 71.5%.but normal OOH cannot create impact. We aimed to seek innovative physical expressions which were boundary breaking and demonstrating #PlayWithNoLimits. We managed to take over the whole TheBund to celebrate PS5 debut. We sourced more boundary-breaking OOH formats such as glass-free 3D effects to create impact. An art gallery near TheBund was hired for an immersive mega pop-up party. We invited top gaming KOLs to play in the amazing SonyPS5 game world and created enchanting experience videos assets for social influence. We focused our budget around the open sell day. Every piece of ad we advertised include one consistent ending to address the open sell day on 15 May,aiming to drive a herd effect among gamers.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

The campaign activation was iconic, unexpected and relevant. Iconic: #PlayHasNoLimits launch party Huge immersive Sony game world with top gaming KOLs launched the campaign with livestreaming across the nation supported by ads on both new, social and vertical gaming sites to seed the upcoming sales date Unexpected: we took over key cities with impact out of home 1.Occupied landmark mega video screens & glass-free 3D effects in key cities. 2.Packed The Bund in Shanghai, one of the biggest gaming cities in China, with a mega PS5 light show. 3.irregular creative video with iconic Sony gaming IPs on gaming platforms. Relevant: More KOLs’ unboxing reviews to solidify the tech credentials and limitless play opportunities of the amazingPS5.

List the results (30% of vote)

Campaign generated huge impact:  831M+ impressions  positive Social buzz and 5x uplift on search trends across platforms  Livestreaming of the opening event view was 237% higher than estimation  Digital platform total interactive rate was 125% higher than industry average Most importantly, total stock of 60K machines sold out within 10 minutes – the fastest most impactful gaming launch in China.