MediaCom, in collaboration with TfL, Red Consultancy and Diva Agency, won the Grand Prix at The Drum Awards for Out of Home in 2021. The campaign the announce the launch of PlayStation 5 also won the ‘Disruptive’, ‘Most Talked-About’, ‘Experiential/Ambient/Installation’ and ‘Spectacular’ categories. Here, the team behind the project explains the planning that went into launching one of the world’s most popular consoles.
Every seven or so years, the gaming giants, PlayStation and Xbox, go head-to-head with their new console releases. A successful launch is paramount. The early winner is almost certain to win the overall battle for the next generation of gamers.
Back in 2013, PlayStation 4 set industry sales records for a console launch and retook the lead from Xbox. But no console had won back-to-back launches. And in November 2020, it was the turn of PlayStation 5 to go up against the Xbox Series X|S.
Objectives
PlayStation’s task was clear: not only to retain market leadership and secure an early victory, but to do so at a pace and scale never before seen in the industry. (It didn’t help that Xbox was launching a week earlier.)
But, as we know, 2020 was a different kind of year. Covid-19 had affected PlayStation in a different way to many other brands, with the global pandemic raging, gamers and non-gamers alike had already rushed out to buy consoles to keep themselves and their families entertained through lockdown. It meant that one in four UK homes already had a PS4, would they want or need a PS5?
There was also unprecedented secrecy surrounding PS5 meaning we weren’t able to share our campaign messages too early.
Despite this, our consumer insight was clear. Whilst gaming advertising is usually targeted towards specialist gaming titles, this global launch was too important and the ambition too big. We understood the thrill gamers would experience seeing their passion pervade everyday culture, to be seen as cool outside of the gaming world that it normally inhabits.
Strategy
Our ambition was to create a UK local market launch event that would get us publicity worldwide, even through the noise of Covid-19, the US election, and (a little closer to home), Brexit. We wanted UK gamers to recognize how critical they were to PlayStation, by making this UK launch campaign feel as big and as important as any other PS5 activation across the world.
At the heart of our campaign, we knew we needed something that conveyed the cultural importance of PS5’s launch, through executions that both captured the imagination and confounded expectations.
And so, despite the threat of another UK lockdown, we knew an iconic, unexpected, and brilliantly executed OOH stunt would achieve these goals, both strategically and tactically.
But this is always easier said than done.
Arguably, our most important decision was the location. Oxford Street is, in normal times, the busiest street in the world, but even during lockdown it’s still one of UK’s most famous and recognizable places, not least because of the iconic London Underground signs outside Oxford Circus tube station.
And so – in partnership with Transport for London (TfL) we created a moment with genuine cultural cut-through. Using the world-renowned London Underground symbol, we paired it with PlayStation’s own brand iconography; the shapes that have represented PlayStation since 1994.
In doing so, we brought together imagery that was instantly recognizable to both gamers – as well as non-gamers – with a beloved icon that’s never been changed in such a dramatic fashion before, generating a set of images that immediately captured the importance of launch.
Execution
Four entrances, four roundels (actually in a weird twist there were only three roundels, we had to build the fourth), and four months of planning; the Oxford Circus takeover was the pinnacle activation of our launch plan.
With the signs built by TfL’s regular supplier to ensure quality and authenticity, the installed roundels were purposefully 20% larger than normal size, to ensure they were even more impactful in film and photography.
But what people saw overground, became so much more under it. Those venturing into Oxford Circus found the shapes had made their way into many areas of station signage and branding.
That’s not all. Four other Underground stations across London were taken over by some of the next generation’s most loved games, featuring scenery and characters from fan-favorite franchises. These included Mile End Station paying homage to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales by becoming ‘Miles End’, and gamers’ favorite Lombax and robot duo rifting into Lancaster Gate; now ‘Ratchet & Clankaster Gate’.
Results
This may have been an OOH activation, but it was one that lived far beyond the boundaries of London. Far beyond the UK in fact. While we very much planned for the campaign to create significant social buzz, no one could have predicted quite how loud that would be.
The reveal of our TfL stunt alone achieved a staggering 9 million organic impressions. But more impressive was getting nearly a billion news coverage impressions across media such as Mail Online, TV show Good Morning Britain, and even a public commendation from the Mayor of London on his Instagram account.
The activation had the highest levels of social media engagement ever seen in a TfL Commercial Partnership; over 34,000 Twitter accounts shared the campaign visuals or video, achieving over 100 million impressions, and we even hit the top of Reddit.
France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the press coverage was everywhere and across LinkedIn, marketing professionals were raving about the campaign with phrases such as “this is the campaign you wish you had planned”.
Despite unforeseen restrictions imposed as a result of Covid-19, the campaign still managed to achieve over 3.2 million ‘in person’ impacts across the five stations, with 1.8 million passengers at Oxford Circus alone.
Our market launch captured hearts and imaginations across the world. Gamers, marketers, reporters, rivals, tweeters and trade press were all talking about the same thing on 19th November 2020.
All this laddered up to PS5 becoming the most in-demand individual product of the Christmas period for 2020, setting records across retail, establishing a dominant position over its main rival in their respective launch weeks, and ultimately becoming (according to GfK Chart-Track Data) the most successful UK console launch of all time.
This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Out of Home. To find out more, including which competitions are currently open for entry, visit The Drum Awards website.
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/11/24/turning-london-playground-inside-playstation5s-record-breaking-launch-activation
