Beyond the gaming experience

The new campaign invited consumers to test the Xperia gaming experience for themselves, with the tagline "play to the extreme and beyond."

The TVC and print executions compare the dull experience of a man on a children's shopping mall ride to the adrenalin and excitement of riding a live rodeo bull. A coin bearing the Sony Playstation button icons transforms the ride into a real bull, to the surprise of nearby spectators.

A conscious decision was made to use more real-life scenes in the ad creative, as opposed to the use of video game footage - signifying the combination of the Android smartphone and gaming worlds.

A simple story

"Rather than using video game scenes, as might be expected in a gaming console TVC, we decided to broaden the appeal to a wider group of viewers by creating a more 'real-life' situation," said Barbara Yeh, general manager, Euro RSCG Hong Kong. "It's a simple story that effectively communicates in a playful way the advantage of the superior gaming experience of the Xperia Play, without being overwrought."

In other executions, characters from the phone's preloaded games were brought to life in key shopping centres as a series of eye-catching Android robot figures costumed to resemble familiar gaming characters from games like The Sims and Star Battalion. The figurines drove attention to product stalls where shoppers could test the superior gaming experience of Xperia Play products.

WHY IS THIS ON CREAM? It would have been easy for Sony Xperia to have simply used exiting video game footage to promote the gaming capabilities of its new handset. Xperia also used some fun retail activity that raised the profile of both the handset and the Android gaming platform.