Advertising News, Advertising Features

It only does settlements

Remember the hullabaloo surrounding Kevin Butler late last year? It emerged that Sony was suing the character’s actor Jerry Lambert after he appeared in a Bridgestone commercial playing on a Nintendo Wii. At the time, the platform holder claimed that the advertisement caused “confusion in the market and damage to...

Shades of grey

The controversial Bridgestone commercial featuring Kevin Butler actor Jerry Lambert was aired three days after the star’s contract with Sony expired, according to a story on the Hollywood Reporter. However, the performer was bound by an “exclusivity clause” that prevented Lambert from providing his services to competing video...

VP of Legal

Sony has responded to reports claiming that it is suing Bridgestone and advertising agency Wildcat Creek over a commercial starring Jerry Lambert – the actor famous for portraying Kevin Butler in a slew of different PlayStation commercials. In a comment released to VentureBeat, the publisher’s senior director of corporate...

Uh oh

The next time you criticise the Xbox 360’s dashboard for being inundated with advertisements, you might want to stop and count your blessings. Sony has patented a new interactive commercial scheme that shows users playing branded mini-games on PlayStation consoles. The patent flags the DualShock 3 controller, PlayStation Move motion...

Erm

Sony has revealed its latest PlayStation Vita commercial for Japan. The campaign – which was teased earlier in the week – shows local celebrity Shigeru Matsuzaki strumming an acoustic guitar while a Crystal White PlayStation Vita obscures his face. The commercial then closes with the tagline “it’s getting interesting”, which boasts a...

Take a shot

Have you ever wanted to fire a real machine-gun? Well now’s your chance. In order to promote Eat Sleep Play’s upcoming car combat reboot, Twisted Metal, Sony’s pointed an M249-SAW at a real-life version of Sweet Tooth’s truck. All you’ve got to do fire it is visit ShootMyTruck.com and hit your space bar. Seriously. The...

It's still a little bit too early to start wondering where the PlayStation Vita billboards and TV commercials are; it's only January after all

The good news is that the marketing campaign is coming, and, in the UK at least, Sony's aiming big. Speaking with MCV, SCE UK's marketing manager, Mark Bowles, revealed that the platform holder is planning the "biggest campaign" in the brand's..

Eccentric PlayStation executive Kevin Butler's spent the best part of a month celebrating gamers as part of Sony's Long Live Play initiative

But with Thanksgiving behind us, that's now come to an end. In a final video, Butler has saluted everyone, and released a montage of the campaign's best bits along the way. If you want to catch up, check out the suit's official YouTube channel through here..

Top titles get coverage

With Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception out last week, every other Sony PS3 title for this year supports PlayStation Move. Pretty impressive stuff, and something PlayStation wants to publicise with a £2m marketing campaign intended to shout about the motion controller this Christmas. Sony Computer Entertainment UK's product...

Sony likes splashing out on expensive truck liveries

A couple of years back it bought up some God Of War III advertising space on a couple of  lorries, and now the platform holder's giving inFamous 2 protagonist Cole MacGrath a ride around mainland Europe. These trucks will be touring the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France over the coming months, so if you're in the..

It's not entirely unprecedented for Sony to market key PlayStation 3 exclusives with custom Slurpee cups

Remember Kratos' Fury? With no God Of War this year, Sony's turned to LittleBigPlanet 2 and Killzone 3 for their yearly PlayStation-branded iced drinks partnership. Each limited cup includes a promo card which can be exchanged on the Slurpee website for goodies, including strategy guides,..

Up until mid-way through this generation, Sony's marketing strategy for the PlayStation revolved around creating some kind of classy, otherworldly brand image for the platform

After taking a caning from Microsoft and Nintendo's "no-nonsense" advertising, Sony's switched to more generic campaigns with the fake PlayStation exec Kevin Butler in the US and "The Game Is Just Start"..

With Microsoft about to launch their Kinect camera in under a week here in the UK, Sony's launched a £14million PlayStation Move advertising initiative to counter the "controller-free" hype

Sony's formed partnerships with Channel 4, Disney, Nickelodeon and more, and will also sponsor Cineworld and Odeon's Kids Clubs. The ad campaign will build on strong sales in the UK, with Sony already touting..

Will have sold 500,000 Moves in UK by Christmas

With six days before Kinect for Xbox 360 lands in the UK, Sony has kicked off a high-profile advertising campaign for its own motion controller across the country. Sony's spending £14m to reach three major audiences: families, social players and core gamers. It's formed partnerships with Channel 4,...

"This is a button," Sony's latest PlayStation Move promotional website smugly acknowledges

Y'see, the PlayStation Move has buttons, and Sony think that's a pretty big deal for motion control gaming. The yaybuttons.com website is clearly aimed at Microsoft's controller-less solution. It's all tongue-in-cheek and pretty good fun. It all depends on your personal interpretation, of course. Personally,..

When Sony announced they were taking a Kevin Butler-esque approach to their latest PSP campaign, we were a little concerned

The PSP's aiming for a younger audience, and we just didn't think the Kevin Butler approach was going to work. Turns out, with Marcus "PSP" Rivers, they've sort of nailed it. There are a ton of adverts to check out over on Marcus' YouTube page, but we've embedded our..

Kevin Butler - Sony's faux vice president of various departments - has been one of the best things to come out of Playstation marketing since crying babies

Today he's back, as the "VP of realistic movements". This is a Playstation Move centric ad from SCEA and, frankly, it's brilliant. As all the Kevin Butler commercials are. You've gotta dig the way he totally flames Microsoft's..

The European commercial for God Of War III was semi-awesome

But this American GameStop commercial takes the biscuit. It's promoting the GameStop exclusive "Phantom Of Chaos Skin" and features the Chimera-thing from the demo. Talking in a ridiculous manner. Sigh. "Woahhhh - hisss-is that your new outfit Kratossss?"

Surprise

Sony are going to actually promote Heavy Rain as a product. On the television. Blimey! Sony, television, advertising? Who'd have thunk it, eh? That advert sticks with SCEE's "Start" tag-line, still not as good as the "Only Does Everything" commercials in America, but the more serious tone probably fits this game better than a Kevin Butler comedy.