Innovation and originality in advertising should never stop at the ‘big idea’ moment, the execution is equally demanding, if not harder – that’s my personal opinion. Although the idea of a funny ‘playface’ is not revolutionary, its execution in this particular campaign for the new PS3 console definitely is (again, personal opinion). Timothy Saccenti directed this TV ad, developed by Wieden+ Kennedy in Tokyo, in his usually rich and provocative style. I thought it’s worth taking my hat off to the genius in this blog.
In this case, creativity also comes in consumer engagement. That includes Sony’s plan to send a digital caravan across Japan in September to capture more oohs, yrrs and whoos from real people and a website. It is a similar approach to what MTV and Swatch did when promoting Best.Show.Ever competition last year (we had a great opportunity to work on that project).
Coming back to the ‘big idea’, there’s some discussion online, about Sony plagiarising the idea, but frankly speaking you can’t really copyright the fact that people make funny faces when playing video games. It would be like copyrighting ‘a bloke making a khaaa noise when taking a first sip of a cold beer on a Friday night’.
Now, digressing slightly from Sony…
The level of emotion when people play video games is just beyond any rational description! I’m sure there are hundreds of psychological studies around this subject. What’s really hilarious is that none of these emotions are actually positive: anger, disappointment, fury, irritation, happiness (no no, happiness as in You lost!! I killed you!). That obviously comes from observing others play (yes, including Essential team & Wii Tennis!) and my own experience 
To be fair, I will not just sit here and laugh relentlessly at other people so I officially promise to capture my very own ‘playface’ and post it here soon. I encourage all of you to do the same!
And lastly I would like to credit this post back to appropriate people: Creative Review is by far the best newsletter I subscribe to. Not only is it often the first source that informs me about all sorts of news within visual communication but also it is simply pleasant for the eye and it reads well from my mobile phone. I would definitely recommend it (that makes me a ‘promoter’ according to NPS - I recently spend a lot of time with our quant team)!
Magda
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