Rediscovering PlayStation’s challenger mojo

Client: Sony PlayStation USA

Challenge

PlayStation USA’s leadership wanted eatbigfish to help the organisation rediscover its challenger mojo, and help them define the right articulation of the brand in order to win back the core gaming audience.

Solution

We worked closely with a cross-functional team of leaders from software, online, and business development. It would be the first time the company had worked so closely together in this way. We determined that the driving purpose of the PlayStation brand is to ‘push the boundaries of play’ and that PlayStation must be seen as ‘the best place to play – always extraordinary.’ The PS4 would be a manifestation of this ethos in hardware, and the incredible immersive games PS4 would launch with would represent this in software. But the team pushed beyond this to think about how they might reinvent their approach to the online experience, to the sharing of used games, and how they would present themselves at live events.

Results

The internal alignment really came together at a powerful display at E3, the world’s largest gaming industry trade show. A confident PlayStation brand showed up with disciplined, consistent and powerful messaging around what gamers, and the gaming industry cared about. The media decided that “Sony won E3.” The new strategy was then brought to life in BBH‘s ‘Greatness Awaits’ campaign. The ‘Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video’ has received 16 million views on YouTube. In 2013, Sony overtook Nintendo in console sales for first time in eight years and over 40 million Playstation 4 consoles have been sold worldwide to date.