Sony Outlines PS3 Marketing Plan for Europe

Sony has outlined its marketing plans for PS3 in Europe, with a heavy focus on ‘user-generated’ content via social networking sites such as MySpace.

According to a full report in today’s Media Guardian, the company has identified:



Alan Duncan, marketing director for Sony Computer Entertainment UK, believes that traditional advertising and PR cannot properly communicate the PS3's appeal, noting that, "The idea is to use physical space, blogs and other forms of digital networking to inform, entertain and encourage interaction and debate about all the different things the PS3 can do."

'Inform, entertain and encourage interaction' eh? Does this not remind one of Lord Reith's original mission for the BBC to 'inform, entertain and educate'?

The focus is very clearly on communicating the PS3’s varied digital content creation and management tools, via what Sony is calling "cultural content” produced by these chosen partners, which begs the question, ”What about the games?”

Resistance: Fall of Man (pictured) and Motorstorm are both glorious, but there is a definite paucity of other new, original must-have games in the PS3's launch line-up.

Sony has been making use of its ‘semi-official’ Three Speech blog and the oh-so-trendy East London-based Three Space event space/dream nightclub to channel PS3 information to UK bloggers, journalists, art, design and fashion industry insiders and (vitally) those early adopting consumers desperate to pick up the PS3 on March 23rd.

Some of the live events at Three Space are conceived by Sony’s independent content and distribution partners - so they are hosting, amongst other stuff, a PS3-inspired fashion shoot styled and staged by multimedia art, design and fashion magazine KCTV and a launch event for ‘Fashion bible’ Dazed & Confused’s new website, which itself is all about user-created content.

Another partner, fashion and style publisher/ consultancy Marmalade, is launching the first user-generated magazine in partnership with MySpace, via a multimedia showcase at Three Space.

Edited versions of these events will then be distributed via the content partners’ own MySpace pages, as well as the requisite YouTube edits and so on.

So, MySpace, YouTube, User-generated content… Do you see a pattern emerging?

Rana Reeves, a director of brand consultancy Shine Communications which developed the digital strategy with Sony, tells the Guardian, "We set out to find the Lily Allens of the arts, design and fashion worlds - people already out there effectively self-promoting themselves through blogs, social networking sites, websites, and virally…. Traditionally, brand communication with consumers has been channelled via an ad agency. The explosion of social networks and blogging, however, has created a seismic shift. Brands wanting to enter this world have to be prepared to trust consumers to talk about them whether the comment is good or bad."

Say what? Let’s just repeat that last bit (and ignore ‘self-promoting themselves’): “Brands wanting to enter this world have to be prepared to trust consumers to talk about them whether the comment is good or bad." Ergo, there is no need whatsoever for brand management? Surely not – but we’d be deeply, deeply impressed if this was true.

Sony, of course, has always been good at courting the so-called underground and edgy style, art and fashion crowds and its plans with PS3, in this regard, are very much in line with the original PlayStation marketing philosophy of targeting clubs and style press – which, back in the early to mid 1990s was a new and revolutionary thing to do.

But the question remains – is this enough in today’s climate? Or will the lack of focus on the PS3’s games work against them?