Gaming Special: BBH

An intense period of all work and no play characterised the launch of PlayStation 4 for BBH New York when Sony awarded them the contract last year. Executive creative director Ari Weiss and CCO John Patroulis talk Sarah Shearman through a clever campaign that returned to targeting the fervent hearts of hardcore gamers

When PlayStation hired BBH New York as its agency of record last year, the creative shop was not fully aware of the whirlwind months that lay ahead of it, which began innocently enough – partying in Las Vegas – before the agency was thrust into the vanguard of the console wars.

When BBH started pitching for the business, it understood PlayStation was relaunching the brand. But after winning the account from Deutsch LA in February, the agency was informed it would also be launching PlayStation’s new console that year, which in the gaming business, is equivalent to a general election – console-makers go head-to-head with ambitious and rigorous campaigning and the public votes with its wallets for the market leader. 

Seven years after the troubled launch of PlayStation 3, and with the PlayStation brand trailing Xbox and Nintendo, the pressure was on for BBH. “When I look back at the stuff we did I think, ‘Oh my God, how did we get this done in seven months?’,” says Ari Weiss, executive creative director at BBH New York. “We got it done by working around the clock and never stopping.”

“There was an incredible amount of work to get out,” explains John Patroulis, chief creative officer at BBH. “But creatively, this is why you get into the business – the opportunity to work with a trusted brand as good as PlayStation that wants great creativity is really energising.”

But before the grind kicked in, PlayStation invited BBH to Las Vegas for a few days to celebrate and have fun, cementing the course of the agency and brand’s working relationship. Of course, what went on in Vegas stays in Vegas (despite shots pursuing this line of enquiry). 

Calling the core console users

The brand relaunch, in June last year, marked a step change for not only PlayStation, but the wider gaming industry. Over the past few years, the major games consoles, such as Microsoft’s Xbox, have targeted the mass-market, promoting their devices as multi-functional fun for all the family. But PlayStation decided to return the brand to the warm and loving embrace of the hardcore gamers, a passionate bunch seemingly forgotten by their console-making overlords in recent years. And it turned out they’d missed them. “PlayStation’s focus has always been ‘for the gamer’ so in a broad sense, this was our initial target,” explains John Koller, VP of platforms marketing at PlayStation. “We needed to ensure that the connoisseurs of gaming – the core gamer that lives and breathes for the best gaming experiences – understood that the PlayStation brand was back in a big way, and that PS4 [PlayStation 4] represented the best place to play the best content.”

From this brief, the Greatness Awaits idea for the campaign emerged. “Gaming provides some of the greatest experiences of a gamer’s life – they literally get to lead armies and score touchdowns,” explains Patroulis. “It’s not just the greatness itself, but the call to greatness, calling you every day to have a new epic experience. “That is the emotional standpoint of a true gamer. Once we hit on that, it enabled the platform of greatness awaits – it is always there in front of you,” he says.

With many of the BBH team falling into this ‘true-gamer’ clique, including Weiss who spent his first pocket money on a console (made by whom he chose not to disclose), the agency was able to tap into this mindset. That, and many hours spent on the office PS4.

Were BBH and PlayStation worried that by going after a niche audience, rather than promoting its multimedia attributes to the mass market, they would lose market share? (Especially considering the PS3 is the most used device for streaming Netflix.) “We wanted it [the campaign] to resonate to the world and not just gamers – it just had special meaning to gamers,” says Weiss. He points out that there are so many cheaper ways to stream media than a games console, people realistically would purchase the PS4 for its primary use – gaming. The other functions are a bonus.

Bidding for Black Hands

With the US launch date in November, the first commercial to introduce the new brand positioning was a 90-second spot launched in June. Directed by Rupert Sanders via MJZ, with The Mill NY on post, it showed an actor walking through a variety of high-action scenarios from PlayStation games, before going into battle himself. In addition to the TV ad, the brand released an interactive version on YouTube.

This interactivity has underpinned the entire campaign. “One of the great opportunities this has afforded us is we get to tell really awesome integrated stories. A lot of brands and agencies promise this, but they don’t really do it,” says Weiss. “It falls into our sweet spot as an agency between technology and storytelling. It is very easy to be passionate about great stories, experiences and how technology can bring that to life,” agrees Patroulis.

One of the most compelling ways BBH explored this union between storytelling and technology for the campaign was through its interactive film First Love. The multi-platform campaign, rolled out in November to promote the PS3 game Gran Turismo 6, centres on an online documentary about Italian racing driver Mario Andretti, in which he discusses his first car love, a 1948 Hudson. After launching the film online a few weeks after the PS4 went on sale in the US, BBH invited viewers to take part as it rebuilt a version of the vehicle over five days, after which Andretti was then reunited with the racing vehicle. The rebuilt Hudson was also developed as a vehicle in the GT6 game.

When advertising the PlayStation games, BBH works closely with the games developers to ensure that the ads effectively tell the games’ stories.  “Games developers are very creative people and very passionate about the stories and experience. They are always the kind of people we want to partner with, because they care deeply about how their stories are represented, the detail they expect is very high,” explains Weiss.

It was from this level of detail, that the Bid for Greatness idea came from. Having used some incredibly elaborate costumes, weapons and props in the first Greatness Awaits trailer, PlayStation and BBH decided to auction off some of these artefacts to fans. Via bidforgreatness.com, players could bid on the items using Gold Trophies they had accrued while gaming. For example, the Black Hand outfit from Killzone: Shadow Fall went for the highest bid of 1,011 trophies.

Perfect ads put PS4 in the love camp

Weiss points out that marketing to such a passionate audience is something not all agencies and brands have the chance to do. “They either love you or hate you but either way, it’s a fun place to be.” Mostly they found themselves in the love camp, he says. PS4’s Perfect Day ad, for example, has 85 per cent thumbs up on YouTube.

Offering rewards has been one of the key strategies for wooing the audience, says Patroulis. For example, this can be the promise of additional content, or through recognition and community,  such as creating a hall of fame for the First to Greatness activity. “We are incredibly proud of the outcome,” says Koller. PlayStation and BBH have reason to be. Within 24 hours of launch, the PS4 sold more than one million units, and PlayStation announced this August that it had sold 10 million units globally, putting PS4 in the lead.

After the months of long hours it’s taken to reach this point, can BBH and PlayStation now breathe a sigh of relief and put their feet up a bit? Apparently, not yet. “It has been a very successful launch but there is still a long way to go. The lifecycle of a console is long and there are a lot of new people to talk to and dedicated fans to be rewarded,” says Patroulis. “The launch is always a big moment, but no one is laying off the gas yet. We are just getting started.”