Playstation leaving TBWA/Chiat?

News hit a few days ago that Playstation and TBWA/Chiat might head for Splitsville.

Two thoughts:

1) Playstation is in a tough position. The PS3 is a glorified Blu-Ray player, albeit cheaper than a stand-alone player, and even the price cuts will not change that. Xbox has taken the lead in the gaming community niche and Wii just has been fabulous in connecting with the casual gamer. Even though PS3 was the latest player to be released, their social networking options are pretty limited. Is there a chance Playstation doesn't get it?
2) TBWA/Chiat is known for disruptive advertising. Is there a chance this doesn't work either anymore?

My guess is we have to focus more on Playstation. Or rather Sony. There was the scandal about fake blogs. Or the scandal about CD copy protection.

Sony doesn't get it. Yet. What we see out there in the markets, changes in how people connect with brands, how people are taking control from brands is not a fad. It's not going to pass by.

Sneakiness doesn't buy anything. Except a bad rap and a decline in brand favorability.
Stealth Marketing is the weapon of choice for companies who try to claim they get it but continue to market the old-fashioned way. Sure, it will work once in a while but it's not the real solution. A band-aid. A drink for the road.

Sony has to understand that people will find out. How they market to them. How the PS3 has been a failure so far. And how Sony is struggling to stay a premier brand.

Sony doesn't get it. Yet. They better hurry.

Sony goes Second Life

Wired reported today that Sony is about to launch a new 3D virtual world community, similar to Second Life, where users will be able to create a pesonal avitar, explore a high quality 3D world, purchase space and personalise it with purchased or made objects. Sony’s ‘home’ community will be hotly anticipated, as the machine has extremely powerful processing power, so the experience should be visually far more impressive than that of Second Life.

Sony’s move is a response to the recent explosion of social networking and so called web 2.0 sites that are eating into the time spent playing on games consoles. But to be seen will be just how they will learn from Second Life and other social networking sites to make the experience truely compelling and advantagous to the user.

Each person will have their own appartment to which they can invite friends and in which they can chat, play and share video, music and other content that they have on their Playstation. Their trophies from completing games will be hung on their walls. This is very likely to take the experiences that have made MySpace so popular, but deliver them in a far more compelling and enguaging way.

No doubt seeing how brands have been keen to jump on the Second Life phenomenon, there will be a queue of companies looking for new ways to be featured in Home. Appealing to the commercial potential for advertising within this 'game' Sony have designed it so that dynamic advertising can be delivered through the virtual environment including hi quality video.

The software will be downloadable for free, and is due to launch in late 2007.

Sony is the first big player to jump on the VR Social Networking badwagon. Is the long anticipated Google announcement coming next?

P.S.: After my last post about PS3, I moved Sony from deathbed to life-support.

How to kill a brand

If you watch it closely, the complaint is not about the PS3 itself, it's more about Sony's failure to listen to their customers. When will they ever learn?