Sony's 'It Only Does Everything' Campaign Paying Off

SCEA's Peter Dille reflects on the company's PlayStation 3 marketing tactics.

US, April 5, 2010 - Speaking at the MI6 marketing conference in San Francisco last week, Peter Dille, SCEA's head of marketing, said the company's 'It Only Does Everything' PlayStation 3 advertisement campaign is working.

The ads, which feature fictional Sony executive Kevin Butler, were intended highlight the PlayStation 3's features to consumers more clearly and inject some humor. Dille said console sales are going up and that consumers are more aware and educated about the PlayStation 3's offerings.

"The campaign is working to drive hardware sales," he said. "PlayStation 3 sales are up 184 percent in the three months following the price drop, and while a lot of that has to do with price itself, we know from research that consumers are more educated as well."

"Purchase intent went from 19 percent prior to the price drop, to 36 percent after this campaign started. And we've also tracked our competitors and they've fallen during the same time."

Dille also said fans can expect to see even more of Kevin Butler in future TV spots.

"You're going to continue to see Kevin Butler highlighting new content that is hitting the platform. That will include PlayStation Move later this year and also 3D," he added.

Reflecting on the company's early PlayStation 3 advertising, Dille candidly explained the abstract messaging, which included a crying baby doll in a white room, wasn't the best move in highlighting the features of the console.

"We get questions about the white room and the baby ad quite a bit. That whole campaign was to get people to say 'What the [...]? I need to understand more about what this is,' " he said. "That whole campaign was really about power and the power the PS3 has. But what we found was that this whole positioning was a bit intimidating to people. Our research also showed that Sony could be perceived as arrogant."

What the [...] indeed, Sony.

Dille also said the company's initial campaign clearly wasn't working and that the worldwide economic downturn wasn't helping.

"We struggled with our messaging early on to clearly communicate the value proposition of the PlayStation 3," explained Dille. "Now I'd like to think that the best, crispiest messaging in the world really wouldn't have done a whole lot to sell a $600 game machine in a very horrendous economy."

He later explained the company's newest campaign offers a much clearer picture of PlayStation 3's features and puts the company in a much better position with its fans.

"With our campaign now, we kind of knocked off all those obstacles. The arrogance I think has gone away," Dille said. "We kind of gotten back to our mojo with the sense of humor that people came to know and love with early PlayStation advertising. I think it's just a more likable connection to the consumer."

IGN

"With our campaign now, we kind of knocked off all those obstacles. The arrogance I think has gone away," Dille said. "We kind of gotten back to our mojo with the sense of humor that people came to know and love with early PlayStation advertising. I think it's just a more likable connection to the consumer."

Nice read. It is good to see Sony admitting (and fixing) their arrogant ways. The fact that they were flaunting their nose dragging on the ceiling almost made me ashamed to be a Sony fan.

Isn't it sorta an oxymoron... no not the right word... but ironic that they say that the arrogance is gone now, but tout "It only does everything"?

He's saying he feels they no longer convey arrogance via their marketing, not that they no longer harbor any actual feelings of arrogance.

He's strictly talking advertising here.

It's good to see a more humble side of Sony. Even if it's only regarding Sony's marketing approach.

Indeed... I'm glad that he said this publicly since that's what i've been saying all along.  Most of their advertisments were fine, like their second line however they were arrogant and they were front runner advertisments... when the PS3 wasn't the frontrunner.

The Kevin Butler adds were the first American adds that weren't arrogant in some way, which is good because while arrogance does work in adds... it tends to only work when you have something you can be arrogant about that the buying consumer cares about.

For example, were Sega commercials arrogant?  Hell yes.  However they were arrogant about something people cared about... their mature games vs the Nintendo and SNES systems, something a decent sized part of the market cared about.  Power of the system... that's an abstract thing, it doesn't really mean anything to the market.

Those first adds were high conception arrogance that had no context, by the time the second ad campaign came out... the ship had sailed on that.  It was the Kevin Butler adds that turned it around.

"It only does everything" isn't arrogant?

Did I miss something?

@ NEOratt, the commercial with Crash Bandicoot going to Ninty headquarters and talking smack about MArio was arrogant, but it had the Sony humor that made them so awesome to start with. That arrogance was at least funny, and somewhat in jest.

That is the same. Still arrogant, but somehow not AS arrogant, or clearly being funny in some way.

NeoRatt, theyre kind of saying

it only does 'and you expect it to be a few things' everything 'stands for how many features it has'

I mean if you look at the competition it sure as hell does nearly everything, it just has alot of features and if Geohot dies of a heart attack or something those features will be here to stay.

I liked the old ads .. I like the new ones too though